


Don't Shoot the Messenger

by MorteLise



Category: RWBY
Genre: Backstory, Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Multi, Prequel, Slow Burn, So slow I will tag ships as they become relevant probably, actual disaster squad team STRQ, alternate world building, because Branwens, fun fact I started this pre v4 but am stubborn, moderate pofanity, subsequent canon incorporated in some places but not in others, terminal levels of snark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2018-08-19 11:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8205182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorteLise/pseuds/MorteLise
Summary: Huntsman had never really been on Qrow Branwen's list of career choices, but Raven's plan seemed sound--tough out four years of tedious studying and annoying peers they'd never have to see again after graduation in exchange for free food, shelter, and a money-making degree in something a lifetime outside of the kingdoms had already prepared them to do. School was nothing the two of them couldn't handle.At least until an ancient conspiracy, scheming headmaster, and their partnership with a literal ray of sunshine and the possible freaking chosen one get thrown into the mix. No place throws curve balls quite like Beacon Academy.





	1. The Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you just want to write for your rarepair and you end up starting a potentially lengthy backstory fic weeks before canon probably plans on starting to address those things anyway. So it goes.
> 
> EDIT: And hey, that's exactly what happened so attempts to realign this with canon happened. Qrow's Semblance is too much fun not to include in there somewhere but as this was unwisely started before v4, it's not going to be readily apparent. At first.

The school thing was Raven’s idea.

To be honest, most things in the lives of the Branwen twins were Raven’s idea, but the school thing was the first one Qrow had really stopped to question. Mostly because it was the first one that sounded godawful.

“Look, I’m not complaining,” Qrow said, even though he had to shout it back to her from the ten-foot and climbing lead he’d gained storming ahead. And the only reason they were walking at all was because he had insisted on staying human so he could do said shouting and storming. "I'm just—expressing dissatisfaction with the turn of events."

"That is the actual definition of complaining," Raven said as she caught up to him, and despite the dry indifference of her tone he noticed she held her rusted odachi loosely at the ready in her right hand. It was a move Qrow knew he'd be better off emulating with his own zweihander, between the unguarded expanse of potentially Grimm-infested road they were traveling on and the low-grade turmoil he was probably generating with his venting, but he was, for the moment, determined to ride his pettiness train all the way to the station.

"You could have at least asked me first," he snapped. Raven disappearing for a few days to do her own thing was nothing new. Raven disappearing for a few days to alter the entire course of their lives _kind of was_.

"I'm asking you now," Raven pointed out, like it changed the way that she'd gone behind his back before doing so. She pouted her lips and softened her eyes in a manipulative expression of consternation that had worked on countless strangers the Branwens had come across in the past, but Qrow just raised a disdainful, unimpressed eyebrow until she stopped. "I know tomorrow’s a relatively...sudden deadline, but until we are physically inside the building and speaking to the headmaster, nothing is set in stone. You can veto this at any time."

"Okay, I'm vetoing it," said Qrow, partially because he was and partially because he knew Raven was just dying to give her three hour dissertation on why the school thing was a good idea. Which he would be equally happy to shoot down.

Raven rolled her eyes. "Of course you are," she said, and sure enough, squared back her shoulders and jabbed a finger at him. "I understand why you'd think this is a bad idea—"

"—a terrible idea—"

"And also that you feel contractually obligated to be a dick—"

Qrow gasped in mock outrage and pressed a scandalized hand to his chest. "What, me? Never."

"Anyway," Raven said, exchanging her extended pointer finger for her middle one, "the first point I'd like to make is—"

A Beowolf howled somewhere in the distance, the rest of its pack chorusing a reply. Qrow’s blade was out and Raven’s snapped up into defensive position in an instant as they eyed the direction the sound had come from.

“That,” said Raven, nodding to herself and looking too smug by half. “The first point I’d like to make is that.” She nudged Qrow in the side. “You still on your diva kick or can we at least take this conversation airborne?”

And the point went to Raven. What else was new.

Qrow sighed. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, and made sure his sword was secure before shifting and taking to the skies. A black-feathered blur flashed past him as Raven followed suit.

In a perfect world (or at least a reasonably improved one) this would have at least put the discussion on hold while they scouted out a safer section of road and were limited by, well, _beaks_ , but sadly Qrow lived in the shitty real world where he shared a two-way surveillance and communication hotline of a Semblance with his ever-scheming sister and her one-track mind.

They shared the shapeshifting too, but that was—that was a mixed bag, really. Convenient this far out of the kingdoms, sure, perfect for hiding from Grimm and people alike, definitely, but the shapeshifting tended to be where the questions and suspicions started, too. Apparently, in a world where people could tear apart Grimm with their bare hands and spontaneously combust on command, shapeshifting was the weirdness that crossed the line. Or maybe it was the possibility of twins sharing their Semblances with one another. Or maybe it was the more likely possibility that they just had the one shared Semblance and the shapeshifting was some weird bonus prize anomaly—it wasn’t as Aura-dependent as the average Semblance in any case (and how life-saving was _that_ feature) and in the end why should they give a damn as long as it kept them alive?

Qrow was definitely not bitter and had never had any traumatic life experiences involving others questioning his and Raven’s shapeshifting.

Nope.

They actually managed to travel a few watchful, Grimm-seeking miles by air before Raven picked up the conversation thread again.

 _As I was saying,_ Raven continued, ignoring her brother’s over-dramatic groan of disappointment, _it’s about time we accepted how much worse the Grimm have gotten since the Faunus War started._

Well, she wasn’t wrong.

(Not that she admitted it when she was.)

The Faunus War was the latest and greatest item on a long, long list of reasons Qrow couldn’t stand the kingdoms, and boy was it something. It took a special kind of stupid to abuse people for something like having minor animal characteristics in a world where humanity was threatened by monsters attracted to discord and determined to drive them to extinction. Starting a damn war over it was just suicidal.

What had begun almost three years ago as an attempted quarantine had developed into a full-blown uprising on the part of the Faunus, and while Qrow couldn’t blame them for fighting back, the only ones who actually seemed to be benefiting from any of it were the Grimm. They were out in droves these days, primarily near cities and villages where the uprising was most heavily underway, but they’d been getting bolder even in areas where their only prey would be the infrequent traveler.

Well, at least the Huntsmen and Huntresses were probably in high demand because of it—wait, no, he was _not_ going to start making Raven’s argument for her.

Qrow scoffed. _Right, so your solution for escaping the increase in Grimm is to take shelter in one of the places they’re most likely to go? A few extra Grimm out here doesn’t really equal the trouble we’d have in there._

Raven gave a skeptical hum. _Ha. A_ few _. Speaking of those few, what do you say to splitting up for a bit, covering more ground? A pack wandering around this far out usually doesn’t bode well._

Qrow could, technically, roll his eyes in bird form, but it didn’t quite carry the same weight. Which was a shame. _Yeah, sure,_ he sent in the most sarcastic tone he could muster, peeling off to head west. Caution was always a plus, but the Branwens didn’t tend to run into many problems as long as they stayed avian. Which meant Raven just wanted to play drama queen to make her point.

 _My solution,_ Raven sent after several minutes of fruitless but pointed surveillance from the ground each of them had covered, _is to take shelter in one of the most heavily fortified places on the planet. The kingdoms may be a godawful mess of arbitrary rules and violent prejudice, but they haven’t stayed standing all these years without reason. Which is more than we’d do out here on our own._

Really a shame about the eye-rolling thing. _We’re doing fine. We’ve always done fine._ The landscape beneath him and the skies above remained blissfully Grimm-free. He tapped into his sister’s vision to reassure himself that her path was equally clear and felt her respond in kind. _See? Fine. We kill what we can and avoid what we can’t. The system works._

 _Yeah, the system works until we run out of supplies. Then it’s ‘hello civilization, let’s see what we can wring out of you this time before we get run out of town.’_ More than a touch of bitterness colored Raven’s tone at that, which Qrow would be more inclined to sympathize with if her plan didn’t involve ‘hello civilization’ all the time for four years straight. _And we’re living off the bare minimum, Qrow. I keep worrying my damn sword’s going to break in half before I can scavenge a new one, and yours isn’t doing much better. I mean, we could be getting money for these Grimm we’re killing, you know? Which brings me to my next point—_

Oh good, Qrow’s favorite part of an already dubious plan—death wish academy for the terminally optimistic. _Yeah, about that next point—a school for Huntsmen? Really? First of all, how did you even find a school that would admit us, and second, do you really want to tough out four years of that crap? C’mon, it’s not like every desperate town’s going to ask for our credentials if we did go with this Grimm-exterminators-for-hire plan. And again, Huntsmen?_

Raven huffed. _What, did you have a better profession in mind? Should I have looked for a trade school instead? I’m sure we’d fit right in there._

Wow, someone felt a little insulted, those sarcasm readings were off the charts. And that didn’t even rate as a decent argument for a normal person, let alone Raven.

 _Well, would you look at who’s twisting my words again when she can’t come up with a good answer,_ Qrow sent wryly. _I don’t want any profession, Raven, because this plan is the worst._

All right, he’d put his opinion out there. Which hopefully meant Raven’s only options were to admit that Qrow was right for once or rally and turn her rambling into a worthwhile sales pitch.

And of course, Raven chose to rally. _And you, dear brother, are looking at this from the wrong angle, as usual,_ and there it was, the opening statement to nearly every one of Raven’s (generally successful) counterarguments. Had they been human (and in the same location for that matter), this would have been about the point when Raven seized his shoulders, grin plastered to her face and eyes alight with excitement. As it was, her enthusiasm permeated her every word.

_Huntsmen and Huntresses may be glorified death seekers, but we’ll be staying in the heart of the very place that glorifies them! A place with shelter, food, supplies, and the perfect excuse to exploit them all. If we put in the four years of effort we could come out of this with shiny official degrees that would let us keep doing what we’ve been doing but actually get paid for it._

‘Exploit.’ Wonderful word. One of the Branwens’ favorite words. And damn her, Raven had a point. The life of Huntsmen and Huntresses tended to be, from Qrow’s distant and admittedly biased observation, considerably less glamorous, rewarding, and survivable than a lot of the newbies tended to think it was, but their PR department was incredible. Rumor had it academy students wanted for nothing—sure, they were supposed to get their feet wet about the whole hunting and survival thing compared to those kiddie schools, but aside from the occasional requisite mission they were able to train in relative peace and safety at their fancy-ass campuses, secure in their belief that they’d be able to save the damn planet with a big enough convertible weapon. Reality didn’t hit till after they got those shiny official degrees Raven kept raving about and the drudge work that came with them.

Speaking of—

 _Yeah, except we’ll be doing what we’ve been doing for other people. Because that’s always historically ended well for us. We’re just a couple of natural-born helpers, bringing trust and happiness wherever we go, right? And altruism lends so well to our general life-style of actually surviving the things we fight._ Qrow spotted a brightly dressed body sprawled out off the beaten path. _Oh hey, what do you know? May I present Exhibit A of my rebuttal._

He’d been hoping one of them would run into a body. They weren’t exactly rare even during peacetime (okay, they weren’t always Huntsman either—those pedestrian trade caravans were full of sad, desperate people) but there’d been a definite increase since the war had begun. Granted, the bodies weren’t usually as conveniently abandoned as this one was—the smarter civilians and even the less suicidally proud Huntsmen and Huntresses tended to travel in groups, so survivors were generally able to collect the bodies unless the Grimm themselves stuck around out of spite, curiosity, or imagined hunger.

This poor bastard was as abandoned as they came. Which made him not only a great example but a potential target for scavenging.

Hey, it’s not like the guy would need it anymore.

Qrow felt Raven glimpse through his eyes at the corpse below. _What was he doing out this far in the first place?_ she wondered, wheeling around to rejoin him as he circled curiously above.

_Probably entertaining that glorified death seeking you were talking about earlier. He looks what, mid-twenties? Maybe? God, what a successful and long-lived career choice._

Raven snorted in spite of herself. _Shut up_ , she sent, not sounding nearly as put out as she probably meant to. _Body looks a few days old, either nobody’s out looking for him or he went so far off track they haven’t found him yet. Think it’s worth the trouble to go through his stuff or should we keep moving?_

Qrow was almost impressed with the way she tried to stick to her ‘dangerous outdoors’ stance. Almost, but mostly annoyed. _What, in case our fucking_ wings _haven’t put enough distance between us and a mangy old Beowolf pack? I say we check._

 _Of course you do_ , Raven muttered, but flit past him to land by the corpse anyway.

Qrow definitely did not celebrate having lips again by smirking up a storm when he shifted back. He admittedly lost it a little when he took a look at how bad off the Huntsman had been up close, though. Damn, maybe it hadn’t been worth taking a look after all.

Whatever had killed the Huntsman had done so messily—his right (likely dominant) arm had been crushed to a useless pulp and his chest collapsed into a concave mess of gore beneath his mostly intact coat. Something with teeth had tried posthumously gnawing away at his legs for a while before losing interest. All in all, not exactly the greatest mark for potential supplies.

Raven sighed and rolled up her sleeves. “I hate the messy ones,” she grumbled, kneeling down to rifle through what was left of the man’s pockets as Qrow stood watch.

“I would’ve done it if you asked,” Qrow pointed out as he scanned the horizon, but barely knew why he bothered when his control-freak of a sister probably would have insisted on double-checking the body if he had. This at least saved them time.

“So where do you think his weapon ended up?” Qrow asked after few moments of wet squelching as Raven rummaged through various bits of fabric and organic matter.

Raven gingerly (but triumphantly) pulled out a dark, dripping wallet and stuffed it into her own pocket. “I swear to God, if this is about the stupid scythe again—”

“Of course it’s about the scythe,” Qrow said with a frown, turning back to his sister as she wiped her bloody hands off on her shirt. “I miss the scythe. The scythe was great.”

Raven raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Yeah? Then why’d it break?”

“Because it was old, Raven. It was old and now it’s gone and I’m fucking pissed because it’s like no one uses scythes—”

The Ursa that barreled in from out of damn near nowhere would have caught Raven dead to rights if she hadn’t had her brother’s eyes to borrow. As it was, she flung herself forward to avoid the swipe of a massive paw, rolling neatly back to her feet and drawing her odachi with wide, shaken eyes. Qrow had already darted past her, meeting the Ursa’s outstretched paw with his own blade and severing it at the joint.

Which would have been a lot more satisfying if the rest of its pack hadn’t chosen that exact moment to show up.

“Well, shit,” he said, as the Ursae lumbered in, fanning out to surround them.

Mostly because it meant Raven was right. This wouldn’t be an easy fight, sure, but however passive the Branwens’ Semblance might have seemed at face value it did wonders for getting them out of messes like this.

Thoughts traveled faster than words, after all. And the saying did go that two heads were better than one.

_—at least a dozen I’d say—_

_—it’s a dozen even—_

_—half a dozen heavily armored, better to take out the younger ones as fast as possible—_

_—start with the older ones, they’re too cunning to leave unchecked—_

_—what if you try shifting, maybe we can ditch this fight altogether, I can finish off this scout easy—_

“I told you they were getting bolder,” Raven chided, pressing her back to his. The Ursae held off for the moment, more intent on cutting off all the Branwens’ available exits and no doubt gauging their reactions after the older ones saw what had already happened to their scout.

_—fine, I’ll shift, you break the circle finishing off the one you maimed—_

_—either we’ll have an opening to ditch after or we swap out—_

“‘I told you so’ later, killing now,” Qrow snapped, and threw himself at the wounded Ursa again.

Two of the Ursae behind him lunged for Raven at the same time—only to find themselves swiping at thin air as she shifted and took to the skies. Qrow felt something unravel in his chest knowing that she’d gotten out, even as he cleaved messily through the wounded Ursa’s neck.

Annoyingly, the Ursa had been angry enough and heavy enough that even Qrow’s momentum and the thing’s actual death didn’t stop him from staggering back into the Ursae circle rather than forward to freedom. ( _Birdseye view—the young, armorless Ursa to his immediate left was moving to strike—_ ) Qrow managed to avoid the first swipe and take another paw with him, but there was only so much he could dodge as they closed ranks around him again—

At which point Raven shifted in midair and landed squarely on the nearest one, jamming three feet of steel through its skull.

Swap out it was, then.

Raven's Ursa dropped like a stone as she flipped away from the circle, taking off at a run. She winked and saluted to her brother as three of the remaining Ursae broke the circle to pursue her.

_Your turn._

Qrow smirked and shifted himself as the Ursae scrambled to regroup.

Keep your eye on the birdie, suckers.

Discipline and weaponry and Aura and Dust were all well and good, but what the Branwens really excelled in was good old fashioned confusion. There wasn't much point in fighting things head on when they had shapeshifting and Semblance-enhanced coordination on their side—whichever Branwen was liable to get hit could tap out well ahead of time provided at least one of them saw it coming.

Qrow liked to think of it as their little magic trick, sometimes. Or like those street hustlers with the cups and the acorns they palmed in their sleeves. It didn’t matter which Branwen their opponent had their eyes on; if it wasn’t both, it was the wrong one.

They probably could have just up and flown away at this point, Qrow mused as he resumed human form and caught one of the Ursae chasing Raven in the back with his zweihander. Eh, they'd already invested enough time in this to make it personal.

The ambush and the circling had been admittedly a little more strategic than the average Grimm, but one or two fancy maneuvers and a few years of accumulated armor and experience did not a truly smart Grimm make.

 _Seven to go,_ Raven sent as they finished off the two remaining Ursae that had separated from the pack.

So she was pissed off enough to stick this out, too. Good to know they were on the same page.

A Huntsman training academy seemed a little redundant to most people roughing it outside the kingdoms from what Qrow had seen—he caught Raven by the wrist as she feinted a stumble to the ground, spinning her around into a lunge towards the nearest Ursa to fall for it—considering it mostly meant training for something they'd been doing for as long as Qrow could remember, but at least that would make it an easy degree if they could keep sane for four years. And yeah, okay, he was definitely making Raven's argument for her now—Raven dipped him like a damn ballroom dancer as one of the Ursa attempted some sort of aerial leap to bowl them over; he stuck his tongue out at her before dropping to a kneel and severing another one's spinal cord—but he was beginning to see her point. Which, if he had to admit it, was what tended to happen with all of Raven's ideas.

_—to your left—_

_—hit the deck, I've got a clean shot if you're not in it—_

_—careful, its armor's a lot more effective than the others—_

_—there's the joints, we got this—_

And they did, of course. They were a little battered and bruised maybe, but the dust had cleared and they were the ones walking away from the fight at a reasonably faster pace than before.

Raven was the one to insist on staying human this time. Probably because it'd make it easier to gloat.

There were a few new nicks in his sword after that, Qrow noted with a scowl. Aura could only compensate for so much weapon durability when maintenance wasn't really an option. Raven nudged the nearest Grimm corpse with a foot as she passed, watching it dissolve into the wind. Both of them had worked up more of a sweat than was really necessary for one measly Huntsman's wallet.

“Okay, so I might be willing to give you a point or two,” Qrow said finally, still staring at his blade. Mostly to avoid seeing the way Raven was smirking in triumph. He didn't need to see it, he could sense it. Lurking.

“Good. I didn’t even get to the armory yet.”

Qrow glanced over at her at the word and—yep, there it was, there was the smirk. It was terrible. “The what now?”

“The armory,” Raven repeated, glancing over her own blade thoughtfully. But the smirk stayed. Damn it. “Huntsmen and Huntresses are permitted to forge their own weapons—usually in one of the starter schools, but forging equipment and a set amount of supplies are permitted for maintenance and repair in the professional schools as well.” She gestured vaguely with the odachi. “We can toss these useless scraps of metal right in the trash if we want. In fact, you could even go right ahead and make yourself some stupid scythe-sword hybrid if you can figure out how.”

Huh. That actually sounded like a pretty good deal. Let Raven make fun all she wanted; Qrow was handy with a sword and he was _awesome_ with a scythe, so why not combine the two? Weapon diversity was one of the only smart things Huntsman and Huntresses had managed to come up with.

“Lemme guess, you’re just interested in the Dust,” Qrow said, and suppressed a shudder at the thought of Raven in close extended proximity with the stuff.

'Interest' was an understatement. It bordered on an obsession, really—which was impressive, since they only tended to run across an actually noteworthy amount of Dust once in a blue moon. But every time they did, Raven called dibs on whatever she could get her hands on and vanished into the middle of nowhere to run God knew what experiments, returning days later with an expended supply, the jittery air of someone who'd skipped out on a dangerous amount of sleep, and pages of scribbled notes Qrow probably wouldn't have had the patience to understand even if she'd ever offered to explain them. Whatever her deal was, extended access to a decent supply was going to either finally put it to rest or magnify it to a really horrifying degree.

“I am entirely interested in the Dust,” Raven admitted without even a hint of shame. She nudged him gently in the side. “So…?”

Qrow sighed. “Four years, you said?”

“Four years,” she agreed. The smirk had thankfully faded in place of an actual smile, which while equally annoying in context, was at least less insulting. Her eyes were shining with more relief than Qrow felt was really necessary for what he was agreeing to.

“And it’s not Mistral?” he asked, and immediately regretted it as she glared at him.

Of course it wasn't in Mistral. Most of their shittiest shapeshifting judgment experiences that had definitely never happened had taken place around Mistral. Raven wasn't a masochist.

“It’s in Vale.”

Huh. At least he knew why she’d been steering them towards Sanus now. If it weren’t for the generally aimless turn their life had taken since leaving the tribe he probably would have picked up on that sooner. Way to go, Qrow.

“So how’d you even get this headmaster guy to consider taking us? Isn't everyone supposed to be on high alert for weird applications with the Faunus hunt still in effect?” Then again, if anyone could sell the 'tragic orphans from the middle of nowhere' angle, it was Raven. If the doe eyes, crocodile tears, and sob story didn't cut it, her Plan B usually did the trick. “Did you have to sleep with him? Or this one of those deal with the devil things where we're going to owe him our souls in four years?”

Raven shrugged. “Haven’t even met the man yet. Not in person, anyway. But I put the best spin I could on our applications and we’ve exchanged limited correspondence since then. He said our situation was unique enough that he’d have to hold an in-person interview to be sure we even qualified for the entrance exam.”

“Which is tomorrow.” Figured she'd give him the smallest window possible to decide. No, that didn't seem like Raven stacking the deck in her favor _at all_.

“Yep.”

Just about the only victory he could salvage here was avoiding giving her an outright 'yes'. But even if he didn't say it out loud, it looked like this was happening. Qrow tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. “Lot of ground to cover then, I guess. And what’s this place called again?”

Raven smiled. “Beacon.”

  



	2. First Impressions Are Overrated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *quietly whispers* Hi, I'm not dead.

There were a million and one reasons for Qrow to hate the kingdoms. The stuck-up people, the terrible government, the annoying limitations set by local law enforcement—outside the kingdoms things may have been deadly beyond belief, but at least the world narrowed down to survival and the simple fact that everything out there was trying to kill them. Society was two-faced and fickle in ways the Grimm could (mostly) never achieve, and Qrow had neither the tact nor the patience to play the civilization game for very long.

That was Raven’s job. And God bless her, did she ever do it.

Even if it had lead them to mill about aimlessly in the middle of Beacon Academy’s sprawling and mostly abandoned campus on an otherwise perfectly nice morning. Yeah, he wasn’t feeling too grateful about that part.

“I feel under-dressed. Do you think we're under-dressed?” Raven asked with a frown, smoothing down her ragged skirt and tightening her ponytail.

Well, she didn’t leave them much time for shopping—if she’d wanted to do better than scavenged clothing complemented by a couple less-than-new items they’d snagged when they had fast enough fingers or enough lien, she should’ve set a better deadline.

Or at least said something sooner. Or at all. Like when she’d started planning on doing this maybe.

Qrow snorted. “It's not like Huntsmen are known for their fashion sense. Look, we showered back at the inn, our clothes are probably the right size, and there's no blood on them. If that's not good enough for what's-his-name, then that's his problem.”

Raven shot him a look of profound disapproval. Like she'd give a damn about some upstart's opinion either once she got what she wanted. “Ozpin. The headmaster's name is Ozpin.”

“Right,” said Qrow. “I'm sure that'll come in real handy while I'm not saying anything.” Raven opened her mouth to protest and Qrow rolled his eyes. “Cut the crap, Raven, we both know you were gonna ask me to let you do the talking. And since this is your bad idea, I’m gonna say go right ahead.”

Raven grabbed him by the shoulders with an urgency that shouldn’t have taken him by surprise. “Tell me you mean that.”

Oh, come on, he wasn’t that bad.

…Okay. Maybe he was. But she was really over-invested in this.

“Yes?” he tried, mostly so she’d let him go. Not that that didn’t mean he meant it; Raven had argued her case fair and square, she had a right to see it through.

It was amazing how fast the tension drained from Raven’s body. “Good.” She glanced down for the millionth time at a sheet of paper covered in a fastidiously neat and unfamiliar script she’d been consulting since they reached the city. “Right, so, we want the top floor of the clock tower here.”

Qrow glanced up at the building and tried not to cringe. Or laugh. Or otherwise suggest that he planned on sabotaging the interview in any way. Massive, ornate, _and_ glowing. Wow, it was not actually possible to get any more ostentatious than that.

Figured. Why wouldn’t the head glory hound want the top floor of the most elaborate, pretentious building on an already pretentious campus?

“Of course we do,” Qrow said. He took a few deep, calming breaths and tried to look something more presentable than completely miserable. He achieved sullen. Whatever, it counted. “So I guess I stop talking now.”

Raven plastered on a bright, sunny smile and bobbed her head. “You sure do,” she said with the terminal amount of forced cheer that signified that Negotiator Raven was running the show. She closed her eyes for a moment and muttered to herself, gesturing vaguely as she ran through whatever simulated conversation would let her spin the story she’d cobbled together for the occasion one final time.

So apparently they weren’t actually ready yet, Raven just wanted him to shut up. Thanks, Raven.

The faint sound of clacking off in the distance interrupted Qrow’s sulking. He frowned. “Hey, do you hear heels?”

Raven looked briefly annoyed until she stopped to listen herself. “Actually, yes. Weird.” She at least took that as their cue to get the show on the road and glanced back at the letter. “Okay, so we just buzz the intercom to the top floor and—”

A throat cleared behind them, heralded by the overpowering scent of cologne. “Perhaps you were misinformed or simply neglected to pay attention to the finer details in your response letters, but the arrival time for entrance exam participants isn’t for another two hours. The campus is currently closed.”

The man smirking at them with a thin layer of civility barely concealing a fuckton of elitist scorn was middle-aged and blond with dead blue eyes, a pencil-thin mustache, and a tailored black suit edged in gold. He arched an eyebrow. “Or is there something I can help you with?”

_Tell me that’s not the headmaster._

_How should I know? I have a letter, Qrow, not a ten-page description with an attached color photograph. But I’m assuming not, he said he was expecting us._

_Somehow his mustache pisses me off the most._

_Oh God, don’t start._

Raven flashed the man her most dazzling grin and extended her hand, which he at least had the decency to take after what looked like a brief inner struggle. “Hi, we’re Raven and Qrow Branwen, we were told to meet Professor Ozpin here at eleven o’clock? I know we’re a little early, but—”

“Meet him,” the man repeated with a scowl and narrowed eyes. “Meet him about what? The application deadline was weeks ago, if he thinks he can sneak you in under the radar—”

The owner of the increasingly louder clacking heels came charging in behind him in a cloud of gold curls, panting like she’d run a marathon. “They’reherefortheinterview,” she wheezed, curling over her clipboard to catch her breath. Her glasses slid dangerously far down her nose, but through some miracle of gravity ended up dangling there awkwardly instead of falling off. She shoved them back up. The man pursed his lips. Qrow and Raven exchanged a dubious look.

_‘Weeks ago,’ huh?_

_Let’s be real here, the more questions you ask, the madder you’re gonna get, so can we at least get this over with first?_

The blonde gulped down a few more breaths of air before forcing herself to straighten, clutching the clipboard to her chest like a lifeline. “When Professor Ozpin gave us—you, the list of participants in the entrance exam he mentioned a couple of outliers that had to be cleared in person?” She nodded towards Qrow and Raven. “Because of—everything, the earliest the interview could be arranged for was late this morning. That’s…why we’re not scheduled to meet him until noon?” She fiddled with the clipboard, her bright green eyes darting from the man, to the twins, to the ground, before flicking back to the man. “Which is probably why he didn’t answer when you called to say we were coming early. Which I should have tried harder to warn you about sooner.”

Qrow raised an eyebrow. _She’d be hot if it weren’t for the frumpy getup. There’re probably some nice curves under there but damned if I can tell._

_She’d be hot if it weren’t for the deer-in-headlights expression. Doesn’t help that her hair keeps getting in the way._

_Betcha don’t mind all that blonde, though._

_Shut up._

Mustache—because a man who couldn’t even bother to give his name might as well be nicknamed after his most annoying trait—looked thoroughly unimpressed with his teenage assistant. “Yes, you should have.”

The girl’s eyes snapped back to the ground. “Understood, sir.”

Raven, who Qrow swore could smell blood in the water faster than an actual shark, put on her best look of contrition and sidled subtly closer to the girl as she offered her crumpled letter to Mustache. “We do have a letter saying something to that effect, if that would clear anything up. We’re very sorry, sir. We didn’t mean to inconvenience anyone, Mr….?”

Mustache inflated with the pompous importance of someone who thought he was worth a damn in society as he took the paper. “Councilman. Councilman Goodwitch.” He gestured dismissively to the girl as he perused the letter. “This is my daughter, Glynda.”

Glynda straightened up again and flashed them a professional smile and a nod. The wand clipped to her right hip and pistol to her left were a lot easier to notice now that she wasn’t gasping for air or hiding behind her clipboard. Student, not assistant, then.

Raven returned the smile with a thousand-watt one of her own and held out a hand to Glynda while her father was still occupied. “A pleasure, I’m sure,” she said warmly, and Glynda’s smile brightened as she shook her hand for what was probably way too long.

“Likewise.”

Meanwhile Qrow went completely ignored, which was fine by him if the alternative was kissing up to someone who felt the need to wear that much cologne. And his daughter.

_So we’re getting into bed with politicians now?_

_Only if the necessity arises._

_Necessity or opportunity?_

_Eh, whichever comes up first._

Councilman Mustache cleared his throat again, looking every bit as judgmental but slightly less hostile. “I can’t deny that your circumstances seem unfortunate,” he said, handing the letter back to Raven, who had sidled equally subtly away from Glynda. “But given your apparent lack of…” he looked them up and down, eyes pausing briefly where a tail or extra set of ears clearly weren’t, “questionable background, I have to wonder what Ozpin thought worth elaborating on.” He glanced down at his watch. “He does seem to be taking his time for someone who should have expected at least one of these parties by now, doesn’t he?”

“Well, far be it from me to interrupt such a scintillating conversation, Gilder,” said a voice from the general direction of the elevator the twins had never got around to taking. All four of them started.

The tall, grey-haired figure that had apparently been lurking nearby for some indeterminate amount of time like a creeper offered them a slight nod and a quietly amused grin.

_What is he, a ninja?_

_The elevator leads straight to his office. Don’t blow one little lapse in perception out of proportion, we both knew false sense of security was an ailment the kingdom would give to us sooner or later._

_Yeah, but elevators are supposed to ‘ding.’ We would’ve noticed a ‘ding.’_

_Maybe he just has a quiet elevator. I thought I was the paranoid one._

_You ARE._

To his credit, the headmaster seemed a little less obnoxious than his councilman red herring—no less phony, sure, but there was actual effort going into that superficially pleasant smile and the knife-edge behind it seemed mostly directed at said councilman.

Councilman Mustache fired back with an equally fake display that had a lot less effort put into hiding all the underlying venom. “Speak of the devil, Ozpin. So nice of you to join us.”

“I was concerned that something might be keeping my eleven o’clock appointment,” the headmaster replied, his cane tapping on the ground as he strolled up to Qrow and Raven and extended a hand. “Raven and Qrow Branwen, I take it? I’m Professor Ozpin. A pleasure to meet you at last. I appreciate you agreeing to this meeting and I hope your journey here went as safely as can reasonably be expected given the times.”

Ozpin had a firm handshake and good eye contact despite the weird glasses, but what Qrow found impressive was the way he maintained the same level of generic courtesy whether faced with Qrow’s barely civil deadpan or the full brunt of Negotiator Raven’s saccharine charm. Usually the contrast got some sort of reaction out of others—the Branwens banked on it, in fact. Raven could work her magic well enough alone, but introducing Qrow’s prickly bad cop alongside her flirty good cop helped people fall for the act sooner.

Jury was still out on whether that meant the headmaster was one of the few and the proud immune to Raven or just so fed up with whatever Mustache’s deal was that he was phoning it in. Qrow’s money was on Mustache.

“And it’s good to see you again, Miss Goodwitch,” Ozpin continued with a smile at Glynda, who did her jumpy reflexive spine-straightening again and nodded back. “Best of luck on the entrance exam tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Professor,” said Glynda, and looked like she might actually express an opinion before her eyes flicked back to her father and gauged whatever he was about to do to ruin the moment. Her mouth snapped shut with the beginning of a wince.

Councilman Goodwitch opened with the throat-clearing again. “Now is, of course, the time for caution given the violence the Faunus have been plaguing the kingdoms with,” he said, “so whatever reasons you might have for screening these candidates might not be unfounded, but if you found them so suspicious would it not have been better to escort them to a meeting area, especially while there are government officials on site?”

Ozpin’s smile turned a little less superficial and a little more acidic. “Perhaps if the council hadn’t picked such an inopportune moment to interfere with my academy I could have arranged something more convenient, but as it was I chose to ask the Branwens to meet me in my office so I could continue working on how best to integrate your most recent mandates until they arrived. If you would like to offer any suggestions about how to make this transition go smoothly as possible, I’d be happy to discuss the issue with you further after their interview.” He tapped the button to the elevator with the tip of his cane and the doors slid open. “Now, if you don’t mind, the Branwens have traveled quite a long way to be here today and I’d rather not delay them any longer.” He gestured the twins toward the elevator. “Shall we?”

For the record, the elevator doors ‘dinged’ as they opened. So take that, Raven, the ninja theory hadn’t been debunked just yet.

The councilman scowled as they stepped inside. “This conversation isn’t over, Ozpin.”

“With all that still has to be done before the initiation, I certainly hope not, Gilder,” Ozpin replied brightly, and the doors slid closed.

_Wow. This is so encouraging._

_Sure, laugh it up. If this is the worst the Faunus War is affecting the inner city, then I’ll take it over Grimm any day. Let the bigwigs squabble over their idiotic power plays. Who cares, we’re not Faunus._

_Anybody finds out about the shapeshifting, they probably won’t bother to differentiate. They usually don’t._

_So don’t use it. Obviously._

_Don’t use—alright, let’s add another item to the ‘shit you should have mentioned sooner’ pile! Goddamnit, Raven._

But Raven had never actually learned how to take the blame for anything, so rather than apologize or even justify the growing list of things she’d conveniently forgotten to mention, she opted to turn to the headmaster (who was doing a decent job at not seeming particularly stressed about his political whatever-the-fuck but also didn’t look like he minded getting left to his own thoughts for the duration of a freakin’ elevator ride) and break the silence with a soft, self-conscious laugh. “I’m sorry, sir, as far as first impressions go that probably wasn’t the greatest.”

Qrow just barely won a short but violent battle with himself to avoid rolling his eyes as Ozpin replied with an equally genial “Now, Miss Branwen, I’m not going to blame you for things beyond your control. I understand that the ramifications of our recent political upset have gotten dire enough to reach even the most remote areas outside the kingdoms’ borders. If anything I should be apologizing to you on behalf of the kingdoms for inducing these circumstances to begin with.”

Raven’s response was predictable to the micro-expression—the lowered gaze, the hint of a blush, the shy little half smile—but at least she was happy to hold the guy’s attention away from Qrow. “Why, thank you, sir.”

At which point the elevator thankfully arrived at their floor and freed Qrow from the prospect of listening to more small talk.

Ozpin’s office was spacious and mostly empty aside from its excessive gear infestation—and sure, why wouldn’t a clock tower be mostly gears, but some of that stuff didn’t even look connected to anything—aside from some pillars and the odd decorative end table. The only other prominent features in the room were the desk, which was home to a gear infestation of its very own, and the chairs, two of which were pretty run-of-the-mill and situated before the desk, while the one behind it was shaped like—

Well it kind of resembled—

 _If you say anything I swear to God I will punch you_ , Raven sent calmly.

_Something has to be said. By anyone. For the sake of humanity._

_I can see it. You can see it. He has to look at it every day. This is not how we get kicked out of here._

Qrow didn’t pout, because that was beneath even him. Probably.

And with the phallic commentary axed, there wasn’t much to do but sit down, shut up, and let his sister talk their way through the damn interview.

Raven had, despite their backwater and dysfunctional background, managed to perfect her sitting posture into a state of equal poise and nonchalance. It shouldn’t have been possible to balance between straight-backed professionalism and lounging, but somehow she did it. Qrow mostly slumped down in his chair and hoped he didn’t start sliding out.

Ozpin shuffled for a moment through a folder that from the brief glimpses of handwriting contained their application forms before giving them his full attention.

“Over the five years I have served as headmaster at this school, I’ve gone over countless colorful and creatively written applications to this academy,” he said. “But I must say, it’s not often I come across a transcript so simultaneously in-depth and lacking in detail. Certainly the number of meticulously described exploits you’ve put forth in your qualifications would suggest your experience is genuine, but it’s as though it comes from inside a vacuum. You have no prior academic experience, no recognizable documented experience, no references, not even a place of residence or next of kin. It’s a miracle we were able to keep up correspondence long enough to arrange this meeting.”

There were a few reactions Qrow would’ve liked to have had during that little speech, but even sneaking a surprised glance at his sister seemed a little too conspiratorial to make a good impression.

 _I was expecting to have to roll with at least six lies by now. Did you actually try to truth our way in here? Forget the headmaster, now_ I’m _suspicious._

_What, did you think I’d make you memorize an elaborate facade we’d have to maintain for actual years right here and now? Don’t answer that. Honesty has never been our best policy, but it seemed like the least complicated option here. This way you can say what you want without fear of contradiction and we can get a read on this guy before we’re fully committed._

_We’re gonna need that read, he let us in on that? You sure you didn’t sleep with him? I mean face-wise he’s not the worst option but—_

_Ugh, stop, I’d tell you if I had. I’m a little creeped out by how well this is going, too. This...might not have been my Plan A as far as lying low was concerned. But we may as well keep going if we’ve made it this far._

“I’m aware of the various...morally dubious lifestyles survival outside the kingdoms tends to entail,” Ozpin continued. “And I can certainly understand wanting to omit those details in writing to a school ostensibly dedicated to protecting the people and upholding the peace, but I’m afraid I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least ask for them in person.” He seemed determined to keep the generically pleasant train going, his smile slight and shrewd without dipping into accusing. “Nothing disclosed here will pass beyond the people in this room, you have my word. So, Raven and Qrow Branwen, what exactly is your story?”

Qrow did glance at Raven then, both to indicate to the headmaster that he was deferring the exposition to his sister and because he was genuinely curious about where she’d take it. Raven made a show of pulling herself together, lacing her fingers together in her lap and taking a deep breath before starting.

“I know it looks like we left a lot out, but the truth is there’s not much to tell,” she said with a rueful grin. “My brother and I...weren’t blessed with the best of luck. The only constant we’ve ever had in our lives is each other. When you’re that kind of unwanted, you either get skilled or you get dead.”

Ozpin didn’t look unsympathetic, but he looked far from convinced either.

Raven winced, eyes darting briefly to the ground as she gave a reflexive smile. “Still vague, I know. It’s just difficult to, ah, summarize.” She closed her eyes for a moment and took a second breath.

The headmaster raised an eyebrow. Qrow’s default indifference deepened into worry.

_Are you actually nervous?_

_Why, were you hoping to pitch in? Step off, if I’m not fidgeting, I’m not nervous. Just trying to build atmosphere._

_You prima donna too hard, we’re gonna lose his interest before you can answer the question._

Which apparently struck a chord, because Raven lifted her chin and began again. “Honestly, sir, I’d like to think we’re a testament to the destructive power of small town superstition,” she said, and there was nothing fake about the frost in her voice or the edge to her smile. “I couldn’t tell you when or where we were first abandoned, but every town we tried to take shelter in after was happy to give us the why. Seeing children blow in from out of nowhere begging for refuge apparently sends up red flags by its lonesome, but when you toss in the twin factor and a superficial chromatic resemblance to the Grimm I guess you get a recipe for the perfect scapegoats.”

Qrow suddenly realized he was clenching his jaw, eyes constantly sliding away from the headmaster’s face to avoid gauging his reaction, and hated himself for it. After seven years he should’ve developed a thicker skin about their own goddamn life story, and somehow he’d never quite managed it.

At least Raven liked to do the talking.

“If it seems like we never put down roots long enough to leave a quantifiable paper trail, it’s because we didn’t,” Raven said. “It’s not easy to grow them when everyone’s dead set on labeling you as harbingers of misfortune. And, well, out in the middle of nowhere and already getting the blame for every little mishap, we weren’t sticking around long enough to become the very real cause of any Grimm attacks.”

She straightened and gave the headmaster a steady stare that was equal parts defiant and guarded. “So yes, as you said, with all civil options barred to us, the lifestyle we ended up in was what you’d probably consider ‘morally dubious.’ If you can’t be wanted, be useful. And whatever their faults, the people willing to take us in found us very useful.” She flashed him a serrated grin. “And raised us to be more useful still.”

At that point Qrow felt he needed a gauge enough to force his eyes back to note Ozpin’s reaction, which was the least rewarding thing ever because the headmaster’s expression mostly amounted to thoughtful—which was better than hostile, sure, but it would’ve been nice to know which way the guy was leaning. “I see. And while it’s admirable that you decided to pursue a nobler career path, what prompted you to leave the lifestyle that accepted you so readily?”

_Because they were dicks._

_They were the closest thing we’ve ever had to family, asshole. More effort than anyone else put in._

_Right, they were such goddamn saints, taking us in so they could exploit us. The only difference between what we did in towns before they took us in and after is that we were doing it for them. Kinda hard to shake a reputation for heralding misfortune when your job is scouting out towns and sowing panic to preempt a bandit attack._

_Just playing to our strengths. Not like we owed the townsfolk anything._

_You were the one who said we should_ leave _—_

“It wasn’t a sustainable way of living,” Raven said, as much in answer to Qrow’s cut off protest as to the headmaster’s question. “There’s only so long you can run from the Grimm out there, especially in a large group whose most useful weapons are fear and discord. I’m grateful for what they did for us, but when the war increased the risks and we felt we were skilled enough to fend for ourselves, we did so. It’s been almost a year since we left.”

“And this seemed like a logical next step?” Ozpin asked, and even though Qrow had been wondering that exact same question, the skepticism in the headmaster’s voice still set his teeth on edge. “There’s an excellent chance that you’re both physically qualified to pursue this career path, but combat skill alone will only take you so far. I’m afraid the reputation of Huntsmen and Huntresses has gotten rather romanticized over the years. Slaying monsters is no small part of the job, of course, but the rumors tend to gloss over the years of study and academic competition involved on top of combat training. And, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, even with the freedoms allowed to us we are not immune to politics. This requires the kind of long-term commitment and dedication you’ve sadly been denied by others, and it won’t serve as a gentle introduction. Are you certain this is something you’re willing to stick with for four years, let alone a lifetime?”

Qrow’s eyes had begun wandering again, and his attention with it. Sure, hearing doubt from a so-called authority figure pissed him off on principle, but the headmaster wasn’t preaching anything Qrow hadn’t already considered. If Raven really wanted to get this ball rolling she’d have to sell her sales pitch on her own. Not that she wouldn’t have done that anyway even if Qrow had been interested in helping, but at least this way Qrow felt like he had some sort of control.

There was a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, a shift in light over by one of the pillars. He frowned slightly and tried to angle for a better look without getting too obvious about how little he was paying attention to the conversation. It flickered again as he tried to track it, but the source eluded him.

It wasn’t like a shadow, really, maybe a change in shadow? It was too bright out to blame ambient lighting and it didn’t look anything like the occasional bird or airship flying past the window.

Maybe it had something to do with the gears—

 _Eyes forward,_ Raven snapped.

Qrow didn’t start, but he felt like his return to the conversation was pretty obvious anyway.

“—an opportunity to really make something of ourselves. In the past our survival was all we could afford to focus on, but if you’re willing to give us a chance, then we are willing to put forth the effort necessary to excel.”

Wow, yes, this was so important. He was so glad to be paying attention to Raven’s continued bullshit. At least this sounded like the wrap-up stage, if the practiced earnestness and finality to her speech were anything to go by.

“I’m glad to hear it,” the headmaster replied, matching her tone in all but finality and oh God, what else could he possibly have to harp on here, just let them leave already—

“That just leaves the matter of teamwork.  I can’t begin to imagine the emotional scars you’ve suffered over the years, but trust is paramount to a Huntsman or Huntress’s career. At Beacon you would be spending four years training, studying, eating, and sleeping alongside at least two complete strangers—three if you should find yourself on separate teams, although I suspect you wouldn’t. Strangers you will have to learn to respect, rely on, and work with.” This time there was something genuinely apologetic in his smile, which just made Qrow dread what he had to say next even more. “I doubt you deserve the reputation you said you’ve been given, but suggestion is a powerful thing. A lifetime of association with misfortune is not easily shed, even in a new setting.”

Heh, if only he knew. But also fuck you, guy.

Raven gave a laugh, light-hearted with just a touch of derision. “I’m sure we’ll be fine, sir. That far beyond the kingdoms’ borders, superstition runs rampant. Too many people are ignorant, uneducated, and desperate to avoid thinking about their own helplessness—they need something or someone to blame for their problems. But Beacon is a bastion of education and heroics in the heart of one of Remnant’s greatest cities. How many of the people qualified to be attending your prestigious academy would be gullible enough to believe in what, bad luck charms?” She wiggled her fingers in a faux mystical gesture with a smirk. “Harbingers of doom? Bad omens?”

She was the very picture of dismissive composure, bright-eyed with amusement and completely at ease. Qrow could play good game when it came to bluffing, but nothing compared to Raven.

Ozpin chuckled. “Yes, I suppose such things belong in the realm of fairy tales,” he agreed, but that wasn’t enough to get him to drop it. “Nonetheless, I’m concerned about what that may mean for your mindset going into this. It is imperative that you be able to entrust your lives to others, and that they be able to entrust their lives to you.”

Raven’s smile flickered. “Well, it might be a challenge at first, but it’ll be refreshing to even have the opportunity to try,” she said, a little less flippant than before.

“As you did with the people who took you in?” Ozpin asked. There was an edge to his voice now, the kind Qrow was used to hearing and realized he’d been waiting for since they’d started the interview.

The way Raven’s eyes narrowed told him she felt the same way. “Like I said, _sir_ , these would be very different circumstances.”

“I would like to hope so,” said Ozpin. “I’d like to believe that you have more faith in Beacon’s security and protection than you did in the cutthroat survivalist lifestyle your...caretakers offered, but at the end of the day it seems as though you’ve come here seeking the same things—shelter, resources, and training for your own benefit. How can I be sure you won’t abandon this path as well if you deem the risks too great?”

This was more along the lines of what Qrow had been expecting from the start—passive aggressive hostility disguised as ‘concern’; although for all that the headmaster’s wishy-washy pleasantries had dissolved into steely retorts, he still wasn’t at Councilman Mustache levels of scorn just yet. Would’ve been nice of him to skip the rest of the crap and just cut to this part in the beginning, though.

Raven looked equally resigned, affecting hurt in her eyes as she cut her losses. “If what I’ve said so far hasn’t convinced you, I’m really not sure what else to say.”

“Why here? Why now?” Ozpin asked. He held up a hand as Raven opened her mouth to argue. “Yes, you’ve already given me a solid and well thought out response as to why you applied, but that’s not what I’m asking. It sounds as though you’ve had a difficult year and yet you waited until the last minute to apply and even longer to set foot into Vale.”

_Last minute? Was this an impulse thing?_

_Not. Now._

“Well, it’s a long journey,” Raven said. She unlaced her fingers in her lap and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the other hand smoothing out her skirt.

“Then why not apply to Haven?”

Seriously? Had the guy ever been to Mistral before?

There was nothing kind left in Raven’s smile. “We’ve had our fill of Mistral. We mostly stuck to Anima’s fringes but even if the kingdom can’t maintain the whole continent, its influence—” she made a vague, uncomplimentary gesture, wrinkling her nose, “bleeds. And none of what we’ve seen of it has thrilled us.”

Something flashed across the headmaster’s face at that—nearly sympathetic but mostly strange. “And yet you remained there even after striking out on your own, rather than consider seeking refuge in other kingdoms.”

Raven shrugged. “We thought we could handle ourselves out there. We thought wrong,” she said, sliding a hand up to her neck absentmindedly. “Luckily this came around just as we were realizing that.”

“Was the event that prompted that realization anything like the one that caused you to leave your caretakers?”

Qrow shifted in his seat, not bothering to hide his frown. What was this guy’s problem?

Raven blinked rapidly, winding her long necklace chain around a finger. “I don’t—what are you implying?”

The generic courtesy was all but gone at this point, exchanged for something more analytical and anticipatory. Which was somehow more unnerving than outright animosity. “You’ve spent your entire lives running—from persecution, hostility, the Grimm—and yet recently you seem to have done so in excess. Even a community that shares your wanderlust couldn’t satisfy you, nor your own independence—you’re sitting here pursuing a lifestyle contrary to everything you’ve partaken in so far, seemingly on a whim. Surely the compressed timeframe suggests it was more than the war, given the two years you waited before setting down this path. What changed in your community?”

“Nothing changed.” Round and round the chain wound on her finger.

A sharp pain bloomed in Qrow’s mouth as he accidentally bit a hole in the inside of his cheek trying to stay silent.

“Then did something find you?” Ozpin asked quietly. “Is there something else you’re running from?”

The winding stopped. “Excuse me?” Raven said, staring at him. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, brow furrowed as she searched for an answer.

Probably because it was such a stupid fucking question. Yeah, they were done here.

“What more is it gonna take?” Qrow snapped. Both of them turned to look at him, startled. The flicker in the corner of his eye returned. He ignored it. This bullshit had gone on long enough.

“I bet it’s been a while since you’ve been out there, what with running your school and all but what the fuck kind of bubble do you have to live in to think Grimm, prejudice, and the goddamn war you people started aren’t good enough reasons to suddenly want a fresh start? Would, I dunno, a super-Grimm sound better? The apocalypse? What are you looking for here? You don’t want us, fine, you sure wouldn’t be the first, but at least come out and say it instead of making us jump through all these fucking hoops so you can come up with an excuse!”

He realized he was breathing hard as the red faded from his vision. Also he was standing. Huh, okay. At least he’d gotten his point across.

The headmaster’s initial shock had faded, replaced by an expression that was weirdly calculating for someone who’d just gotten cursed out in his own office. Qrow glanced at Raven, who thankfully looked more relieved than pissed about his intervention. Great, maybe now they could get out of there.

“You’re entirely right, Mr. Branwen,” Ozpin said, just as Qrow was about to grab his sister and beat a hasty, spite-filled retreat. “I was out of line, I apologize.”

“Oh.” Qrow suddenly felt very stupid standing up. “Well, good,” he said, and sat down again.

He now had the headmaster’s full attention, which was the opposite of what Qrow had wanted, and what Raven had wanted, and probably what the headmaster would want in about thirty seconds if Qrow’s initial rant hadn’t done it. “You’ve been awfully quiet during this interview. Is there anything you’d like to add? What brings you to Beacon?”

Qrow shrugged and glanced at Raven again. Her hands had settled back in her lap, but the troubled frown remained. He didn’t blame her—it wasn’t often her fancy footwork bombed that badly. “My sister’s the plan person. I go where she goes. So if her reasons aren’t good enough for you, I guess we’re done here.”

“I see,” Ozpin said with that air of finality Qrow had been hoping for three topics ago, which would’ve been great if it actually cleared anything up. Was that a yes? Was it a no? Was he gonna keep jerking them around until they snapped again?

 _Should’ve gone with Plan A_ , Raven muttered.

_Eh, we still can, he’s probably about to tell us to fuck off._

After a brief but annoying moment of suspense where he scribbled something down on their application forms, the headmaster folded his hands on his desk and smiled, courtesy back in place now that he’d gotten...whatever it was he’d been fishing for. Maybe. Presumably. Or something. “Well, then, I think I’ve heard all I needed to hear.” He stood and offered them a hand again. “Thank you for your time, Mr. and Miss Branwen. I hope to see you at the orientation in a few hours.”

They stared at him. Raven recovered first and shook his hand tersely before turning to leave. Qrow stared a moment longer.

Ozpin quirked an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Seriously?” Qrow asked.

“Of course,” the headmaster said, taking initiative and shaking Qrow’s hand instead. “Welcome to Beacon, young man. Best of luck in the entrance exam.”

Qrow sucked in a breath and gave up trying to understand anything. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and turned to follow his sister.

Raven slipped her hand into his as they headed to the elevator. Qrow squeezed sympathetically.

_So...that was weird._

_Not exactly confidence-inspiring,_ Raven agreed.

_Kinda want to keep going out of spite now though._

_I want to say I was counting on that. But I have no idea what the fuck just happened. Same, I guess._

“Ah, one last thing,” the headmaster said just as the elevator doors slid open. He held up a placating hand as they both froze. “Nothing to do with you, and I am sorry to ask, but would you mind letting Councilman Goodwitch and his daughter know that it’s going to take me a few minutes to get my paperwork in order before I can buzz them up?”

“Absolutely, sir,” Raven said as they stepped into the elevator, and wow, did she sound like she was phoning it in. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the elevator wall as it headed down.

“I’m sensing regrets.”

She cracked an eye open. “Fuck off. We got through it and spite’s as good a motivator as any.”

The bureaucratic pajama party was still waiting when they reached the ground floor, the councilman glaring at his scroll while Glynda looked something over on her clipboard. They both looked up when the doors slid open.

Councilman Goodwitch dusted off the old practiced disdain again, but Glynda smiled. Mostly at Raven, big surprise there.

“Did you make it in?” Glynda asked immediately, then flushed and gestured to her clipboard. “Because we really need to lock in those numbers.”

Raven shed her bad attitude like she was secretly a snake Faunus, beaming with syrupy-fake pride. “Actually, we did.” She turned to Councilman Mustache. “And Professor Ozpin told us to let you know it’s going to be a few minutes before he can buzz you up.”

Goodwitch gave what had to be the closest Qrow had ever heard to an honest-to-God harrumph. It turned out that was something he could have gone a lifetime without hearing and been okay with it. “Of course he did. And you still lack an escort, what a surprise. Glynda,” the councilman said, gesturing for her to hand him her clipboard, “make sure they leave the premises without incident. Ozpin’s kept us waiting this long; surely we can postpone the meeting until your return.”

Glynda hesitated, frowning. “I’d be happy to, but doesn’t school regulation state that a professor should supervise? I’m sure I saw at least one on campus—”

Councilman Mustache chuckled and waved a dismissive hand. “The regulations are precisely what need to be altered given our current situation, Glynda. I trust you,” he said warmly, because apparently she was the pinnacle of competence when he needed her to do something for him.

 _Do you think they’d actually notice if we just left?_ Qrow sent wryly.

_Might take daddy dearest some time, but Glynda’s neurotic enough. Better not risk it._

Glynda hesitated another moment, and her father added, “Which teacher was it?”

“Peach,” Glynda said, eyes flicking back to the ground.

He grimaced. “Thought so. You’d be a much better supervisor than that cagey jackal anyway.” He turned his attention to the clipboard and waved them off. “Go on.”

Glynda glanced at Qrow and Raven and then down the courtyard with an apologetic little ‘well, you heard the man’ expression. The Branwens exchanged a bemused look but followed.

They might as well play the game a little longer after they’d suffered through that stupid interview.

“Congratulations, by the way,” Glynda said once they were out of her father’s earshot. “I mean, the real test comes tomorrow, but still.”

“Thanks,” said Raven, but the distant, thoughtful expression on her face meant she had her fishing hat on instead of her flirting hat for the time being. “So what’s your deal, Glynda? You’re participating in the entrance exam but you’re also, what, helping your dad with some sort of council thing?”

Glynda puffed up in a manner not unlike her dear old dad. “I’m here as a prospective student, first and foremost, but my father’s supposed to keep an eye on the academy and I’m always happy to help. It's not as though the government wants to interfere with Huntsman business. But with the recent—uprising, and some of the incidents it’s caused, there’s been some question over whether the academy’s definition of ‘keeping the peace’ aligns with the council’s. The worst is over, I think. Shouldn’t be anything too serious.”

Qrow snorted. “Right, because the government goes out of its way to get involved with things that _aren’t_ serious.”

Glynda glared at him but with something less than absolute conviction, which was interesting. “Hard times make hard people, but laws were made to favor ethics and reason. Even if the decision came from a…biased place, reason will win out in the end.”

“You practice that in front of a mirror?” Qrow asked with a smirk, and Raven nudged him in the side.

“Stop,” she drawled wearily, like she didn’t think it was bullshit too. _But seriously, even if she’s full of crap you need to stop pissing her off. She might give us something useful._

_Hey, I’m just setting you up as the good guy here._

_Pfft. She already adores me._

She did, too. In fact it was a little annoying how disinterested Glynda seemed in him.

Easily explainable, but annoying.

“Your timing in coming here was not the best,” Glynda admitted.

Raven laughed. “Oh, we’ve got a knack for bad timing, don’t worry about it.” She stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets and cocked her head to the side. “Anything in particular we should watch out for?”

Glynda’s brow furrowed in thought. “Well, the new history professor’s Atlesian.” She paused, looking furtive. “I mean, I don’t want to make any assumptions but Professor Ozpin did give my father and me a rundown of the reasons he wanted you here today. It sounds like school in general will be an adjustment, but Atlas’s particular brand of strict discipline is probably going to be the most jarring.”

_Atlas...they make those gaudy ships that’re always flying around, right?_

_Yep. Home to Remnant’s most prolific Dust company, too._

_And why am I not surprised you know that._

“What happened to the old teacher?” Raven asked, and Glynda winced.

“Well, that’s a bit of a story,” she said, fidgeting.

Qrow and Raven eyed her expectantly while she struggled so hard to come up with a non-terrible story that she tripped over a trashcan.

Qrow grinned, sensing scandal. “He was a Faunus, wasn’t he?”

Gynda went wide-eyed. “That’s not why the council asked for his resignation,” she said quickly, then frowned. “That’s...not the only reason why.”

At least she admitted it. Qrow’s grin widened. “Wow, your old man helps get one of the teachers canned and you still applied to Beacon? Guess you got guts after all.”

It was supposed to be a compliment, but Glynda still shot back a sour look. She shrugged, annoyance melting into something more wistful as she answered. “It was always going to be Beacon for me. I’ve always wanted to become a Huntress and I’ve never wanted to live anywhere other than Vale. These aren’t the greatest circumstances, but it’s not going to stop me from trying.”

Wow, she was actually so boring she never wanted to leave home. What a go-getter.

Qrow kinda wondered what that was like, sometimes.

Raven swayed closer to Glynda as they walked. “I agree with my brother, that takes guts.” She bumped shoulders with her playfully. “Hope you make it.”

Glynda blushed and made a futile attempt to tuck some of her ungodly curly hair behind her ear. Qrow fought not to roll his eyes for the umpteenth time that day.

_You realize this is painful to watch, right?_

_Why, because I’ve got more game than you?_

No she didn’t, she’d just gotten lucky enough to run into someone interested.

And blonde. Raven really had a thing for blondes.

Glynda ticked a lot of checkmarks for Raven’s type, actually—blonde, naive, easily flattered, a useful resource for the situation at hand—which was what made watching it so painfully annoying. He’d seen this song and dance before; the only way it was ending well for Glynda was if she never saw them again after today. She was the kind of useful Raven would keep exploiting as long as she needed intel, and the kind of inexperienced where she probably wouldn’t realize that was the only reason Raven was laying on the charm. And she sure wouldn’t be happy when Raven inevitably dropped her like a sack of potatoes.

Although Qrow tended to get the blame for that part for some reason. That was always fun.

Raven’s sucker jackpot aside, once the school year started Qrow would be happy to prove her wrong. Of course he had game. He’d just rather go for a fun fling when he felt like it than waste a lot of time and effort keeping up some shitty superficial relationship just because the person might come in handy sometimes.

Stuck living with a bunch of adrenaline-junkies in a high stress environment for four years? Yeah, he’d prove her wrong, all right.

Glynda’s scroll pinged as they reached the entrance and she fished it out, frowning at the message. “Well, here we are,” she said unnecessarily. “Guessing you can figure the way out from here. See you in a few hours.”

Raven caught her arm as she turned to leave and pouted. “Come on, can’t you show us around town for a little bit? Your father said to keep an eye on us, right?”

_Why are you dragging this out._

_Because this place is so fucking terrible I might rob a Dust shop out of boredom if no one’s there to stop me._

_What am I, chopped liver?_

_Let me reiterate that I need someone who’d_ stop _me, Qrow, not someone who’d stand outside eating popcorn and then help me evade the local authorities._

Thankfully, Glynda gave an apologetic smile and gestured to her scroll. “Can’t, sorry, it looks like I have a few errands to run for him before orientation starts. Hopefully I’ll catch you guys after I meet up with Malcolm.” She started walking off, waving absentmindedly and staring at her scroll again.

“You don’t have to,” Qrow muttered under his breath, but Raven had fixated on something else.

“Who’s Malcolm?” she called after Glynda.

Glynda glanced up briefly and shouted back, “Oh right, my fiancé! I’ll introduce you later. Bye!” And she took off at a sprint back down the courtyard.

Well. That was unexpected.

“It is really impressive how fast she can run in those heels,” Raven mused.

Because that was what was important here. Qrow put every ounce of skepticism he had in the look he gave her, but she pretended to ignore it.

“Are you seriously thinking about destroying another marriage?” he asked.

Raven wobbled her hand noncommittally. “This one’s just a potential marriage. Also, obviously a bad match. Bet it’s arranged. By the most oblivious people on Remnant.”

“Four years you want us to live with these people. And this is how you’re kicking it off.”

Raven scoffed. “This coming from the guy who flipped out on the headmaster?”

“He seemed okay with it,” Qrow said smugly, and then wondered why he was bragging about that. “Actually that’s still creepy.”

A shadow passed over Raven’s face as she touched her necklace chain. “Yeah.” She shrugged it off. “Shame bandit rules don’t apply here, huh?”

She probably meant for it to lighten the mood—the bandit way _was_ a lot simpler than this societal ass-kissing—but there was a sick lurch in Qrow’s stomach anyway. Promotions had not been fun to watch.

Or supply runs.

Or bride-taking.

Or member recruitment.

Yeah, he really hadn’t minded leaving.

“Wait, are we talking about killing the fiancé, the headmaster, or both?” he asked, forcing down his discomfort and rolling with the joke when Raven started looking concerned.

She snickered. “Well, I’m guessing the fiancé’s a chump and I don’t want to run a school, so...probably the councilman?”

That was admittedly the most cathartic version of this hypothetical scenario possible.

Qrow laughed with her so she’d let the topic run its course and then cleared his throat, Mustache style, as she quieted. “I still fucking hate you for doing this,” he announced cheerfully.

Raven clapped him on the shoulder with equally fake cheer. “I know. And I don’t care.”

And that won her zero points in the endearment department. Shockingly she noticed for once, sliding her hand from his shoulder to lace her fingers with his as she faced him with an earnest smile.

“Qrow, lighten up. It’s a _school_. What’s the worst that could happen?”


	3. Mutually Assured Destruction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, there goes my last effort to stay fully canon compliant, WHO'S READY TO READ SOME FANFICTION.

Raven didn’t rob a Dust shop.

She did stare at a few of them for an annoyingly long time, casing them out with the intention to shoplift at a later date, but in the end both Branwens managed to behave themselves long enough to make it to the initiation exam.

It probably helped—at least for Qrow—that Glynda never got back to them after all. Fiancé turned out to be the clingy, possessive type; some blue-haired blueblood with a fancy sword who hadn’t let her out of his sight since they’d met up. Glynda had waved from across the room during orientation, but that was about it.

Orientation itself as delightfully awkward as their initial introduction to Vale had been—the councilman (who was apparently there for oversight reasons) was still an asshole, the headmaster was still trying to hide his exasperation, and the whole racial tension thing was kind of skated over, even though there was a distinct absence of visible Faunus in the audience and it had gotten one teacher replaced.

A lot of the prospective students had a thing for hats and long skirts or coats, though. Qrow wasn’t sure how many were disguised and how many were just protesting but either way it was guaranteed to be hilarious.

And maybe they were supposed to socialize after, given that everyone was dumped into a room together for the night—probably to start figuring out those teams the headmaster had been talking about.

Qrow and Raven did not socialize.

Nobody was lining up to talk to them anyway, probably because they made a beeline to the nearest corner and huddled there glaring at everyone while they scoped out the scene.

Aside from Glynda and Clingy Fiancé (who continued to be clingy; sucked to be Glynda), their prospective teammates included such hits as Motormouth, Mousy Bookworm, Social Butterfly (who Qrow felt very tempted to nickname after his ridiculous cowboy hat instead but God, he was just flitting around trying to get to know to _everyone_ ), and Living Bedsheet. The closest the Branwens came to risking an actual conversation were when Bedsheet glanced at them all of twice instead of the usual once before slinking off to hang out with Bookworm, and Butterfly nearly completed his circuit to make it their way before mercifully the call for lights out put an end to that.

Which brought them to the initiation exam.

Yay.

_I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this_ , Raven sent as the headmaster droned on about the test. _You’re just as reluctant to shift in front of others as I am. Seriously, if I hadn’t told you not to, would you be fighting for the right to use it this hard?_

Probably not. But she had, and she’d done it in rapid succession with uprooting their entire lives for the second time in less than a year, so she was just gonna have to deal with it.

_We’re getting launched into a forest off these stupid plates to fight our way through Grimm alongside a bunch of hotshots. I want the option open, even if I’m not gonna use it. It’s not like it’d be that hard to cover up; just hide in some underbrush or a cave, they can’t have eyes everywhere, they’ll never know_ —

“That said,” the headmaster’s voice cut in through their argument, “once you land, the first person you make eye contact with will be your partner for the next four years.”

Qrow glanced at his sister in wide-eyed alarm.

_Raven. We need the option._

_Ugh. Just stay the course and don’t look at anyone, you’ll be fine. Or is that too much for you to handle?_

Low blow, Raven. Bringing his pride into this with transparent condescension.

_You are. The worst._

Implied consent. Always better than outright surrender.

_Love you too, brother of mine._

“Any questions?” Ozpin asked at that very moment, because Raven had mastered timing in a way Qrow could never quite get a handle on and always managed to get in the last word. Qrow considered asking ‘why make your selection process so fucking random, what’s wrong with you,’ but felt it wasn’t a great idea to do that before taking a test while standing on a launching pad that both happened to be controlled by the person he’d be asking.

“Good,” the headmaster said in response to the resounding silence he’d received, because at the very least the guy wasn’t a mind reader. “Take your positions.”

Qrow rolled his eyes and set his stance wider, one hand on his zweihander. Raven did the same with her odachi. Further down the line, Glynda readied her wand while Clingy Fiance’s sword glowed dark with gravity Dust. Social Butterfly tipped his hat to the other candidates before crouching with a jaunty grin, and Living Bedsheet did...something, probably, considering the cloak shifted position without revealing any more of the person wearing it.

And then Qrow was airborne.

‘Landing strategy’ was a pretentious way of putting it, but Qrow had a lot of experience with controlled falling. Half his moves in combat revolved around shifting mid-flight (and boy, was that going to be something he’d miss over the next four years, thanks Raven), so he’d already shielded himself with his sword by the time he hit the treeline, slowing his descent and dropping to the ground just in time to look up and see Raven go sailing past him.

_Where the fuck are you going?_

She didn’t respond, but he got his answer anyway when he peered through her eyes and saw Glynda trail by to her right, wreathed in violet Aura.

_Are you kidding me._

_Networking’s a useful skill. Go ahead and give it a shot, Qrow. I’ll meet up with you at the temple._

Qrow broke the connection and stood there fuming for a few moments.

He probably should have seen this coming. And yet.

He still had a sister to prove wrong about his lack of restraint, though, so he stayed human and went trudging through the forest rather than take the easy way out. She had a point. All he had to do was avoid eye contact until he ran into someone he thought he could stand—

A Beowolf came charging out of the brush at him, snarling.

Oh, right. And kill Grimm.

Qrow side-stepped and watched it go careening past him, digging its claws into the dirt and circling around for another pass.

Actually, killing a soulless monster was the kind of thing he needed right now.

This Beowolf was even younger and stupider than the Ursae pack they’d fought the other day; a lithe, unblemished black with the bare minimum of armor. And it wasn’t getting any older.

A sword through the chest and Qrow swore the idiot basically ran into it, at which point another one came loping out of the trees because Beowolves got lonely real easy. That one was an easy mark, too, and at that point Qrow had cottoned on to how this was probably going to go and was already lunging at the one behind it as he cut it down.

It was the kind of mindless fun Qrow had been craving over the past few days, even if that was a dangerous way to go about even the easiest Grimm-slaying for anyone planning on keeping a pulse. But somehow his sister ensured he needed that kind of catharsis every now and again.

He had just started falling into the rhythm of it when a gout of flame washed over the forest (and even more Beowolves, he guessed; the young ones were like vermin that way) a few yards in front of him and he abruptly remembered where he was, what Raven had gotten them into, and why he needed his murderthon to begin with.

Qrow could take the gamble and see if the mystery pyro was worth teaming up with. He was destined to get stuck with some random stranger anyway, and he doubted he’d end up finding anyone he actually liked even if he bothered screening them first. Might as well get it over with.

Having considered that, Qrow dispatched the last few Grimm around him in record time as mystery pyro started heading in his direction and shot up the nearest tree to hide like the antisocial contrarian he was. He got the distinct impression he looked really stupid, but the whole point of the exercise was that no one else would see him anyway, so who cared.

It wasn’t a moment too soon, either—mystery pyro wandered in not thirty seconds later, revealing himself to be Motormoth.

So that was a hard pass. Motormouth had earned his nickname during the brief time Qrow had been in proximity; happy to talk and happier to do so at a mile a minute. Bullet thankfully dodged.

His choice in weapon was a little jarring for someone so gratingly academic—not only was Motormouth dressed more like he was going on a damn safari than in the middle of a survival test, he actually started taking notes like he couldn’t stand not having someone to monologue to, the small notebook he scribbled away in completely at odds with the massive flame-spewing mace he had nestled in the crook of his non-dominant arm. He frowned at the still-dissipating corpses Qrow had left, taking a break from his aggressive note-taking to glance around curiously, then collapsed his weapon back into a _fucking thermos_ and took a swig from it.

Of what was probably coffee, given the guy had been drinking it in the middle of the night and still managed to fall asleep in record time. Talk about next level addict.

Nope.

Serially caffeinated know-it-all was not what Qrow had signed up for. Not that he’d signed up for any of this. And hey, wasn’t that a thought he’d been having a lot lately.

One disastrous partner near-miss was enough. Raven could take her condescension and stuff it.

There were probably classy, or at least subtle ways Qrow could have found to conceal himself, but that meant more thought and effort than he felt like putting in at the moment, so instead he just activated his Aura and took a swan dive into the nearest sprawl of thick bramble, bursting back out in bird form and taking to the skies just as Motormouth was heading over to investigate the noise.

He ignored Motormouth’s startled yelp and tapped into his Semblance to see how his sister was doing. And also to let her know how little he cared about her useless warnings.

Raven was Glynda-free when he peered through her eyes, slumming it solo as she picked her way through the forest.

_What happened to your pet pencil-pusher?_

She gave a disinterested hum. _Turns out Clingy Fiancé is an apt nickname for Malcolm after all. Wasn’t much point in hanging around when I still have my own partner to find._

_Nice job networking._

_And fuck you very much too, I doubt you’re doing any bet—_ Raven went quiet as she tapped into his vision.

Ah, great. Here came the condescension. Maybe it wasn’t worth it after all.

_One thing. I asked you to avoid doing one thing. That you are fully capable of controlling._

_Yeah, well, I’m not a huge fan of our partner selection. And why are you making such a big deal about it? You don’t think I know how to fly under the radar?_

Gah, bird pun. Bad Qrow.

It didn’t improve Raven’s mood any, either.

_What I think is that you’re only doing this because I told you not to. Which is petty and impulsive and stupid, which is exactly the combination of things that will get you caught._

_You act like I’m so goddamn careless—_

_Reckless is a better word—_

_So obviously because I don’t want to play along with your latest scheme, it must mean I’m some crazy loose cannon, right? I can handle this, I—_

_But it wasn’t something you had to handle! Alright, I pissed you off, whatever, but that doesn’t mean you need to go running around doing the stupidest thing possible—_

Somehow, it was another Ursa that made a run for Raven. She just wasn’t having the best of luck with those lately. This one looked like it might actually be a problem; battle-scarred and massive, built less like the bears Ursae usually resembled and more like a damn tank.

Qrow forced down his rising panic. _Shit, where are you—_

_I’m fine, just stop distracting me_ , Raven snarled, and cut off the connection.

She probably would have said if she actually needed the help. His sister was proud, but she wasn’t suicidal.

But she would have noticed the thing a lot sooner if Qrow hadn’t distracted her, so he shot upward above the tree line, trying to catch sight of her, and when that failed, tentatively reestablished contact so he could trace their Semblance back to her.

Sure, she’d cut the connection, and the twins could keep each other out when they had to, but it was mostly for dramatic effect. Shutting each other out permanently was unthinkable.

She wasn’t losing, but it didn’t look like an easy victory, either. That she hadn’t tried booting him out again usually meant she wouldn’t mind the help.

The multitasking was no fun when they were stretched this far either, Qrow’s mind half on keeping tabs on his sister and half on avoiding colliding with the nearest tree as he zipped through the forest.

Which had actually happened before. But not in years.

So it took him a near-fatal second to realize that yes, that screeching was in his ears, not Raven’s, as a Nevermore came swooping down from the skies. He banked a hard left and nearly did run into a tree, trying to regain his bearings as he spiraled out of control.

It hadn’t been aiming for him, at least. Grimm rarely attacked animals (or…counterfeit animals, or whatever label Qrow felt like sticking on whatever he and Raven were that day) when there was more promising prey afoot, and Beacon’s headmaster had just launched a sad gaggle of wannabe Huntsman into the forest.

So good luck to whichever sadsack that Nevermore had found, because it wasn’t Qrow’s problem—

“BIRDIE NO!”

Or maybe it was.

Whether it was the bad luck everyone loved attributing to the Branwens or just the most impeccably horrible timing and aim ever, literally all of Qrow’s wits were knocked out of him as a body collided with him.

He dropped like a stone, landing hard in the grass and struggling to right himself before he could suffer the most undignified death possible. As he regained his bearings, he realized his assailant had halted a few feet ahead to look back at him.

It turned out it was Living Bedsheet, hood finally down and grey eyes wide with concern through a wild, wind-blown halo of short red hair. She was apparently an animal lover, because rather than leave Qrow in peace so nature could take its course (which would have given Qrow the privacy he needed to shift back and walk this humiliation off while she took the Nevermore with her), she made the completely idiotic decision to race back to check on the winded bird, thereby ensuring that the freaking Nevermore would be back for them both.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” she said in a mortified squeak, hopping over small bushes and dodging branches as Qrow tried to get away before she could inconvenience him further.

A scream shrilled from above as the Nevermore crashed back down on them, flattening several trees and sending both Qrow and Bedsheet flying backwards with the force of its wings.

This felt like karma, somehow. Like for once Raven’s ‘I told you so’ just wasn’t enough, so fate had decided he might as well go ahead and die for ignoring her warnings.

Well, he wasn’t going down without a fight.

Everything that followed happened all at once: Qrow shifted back, zweihander in hand as the Nevermore lurched forward; Bedsheet had out what looked like a blade in each hand, attention squarely focused on the Nevermore as she crouched to attack; just as a King Taijitu that had apparently also been pursuing her came bursting into the clearing the Nevermore had made. Qrow raised his sword in time to see Bedsheet stand up straight, lower her arms, set her jaw, and stare directly at the two Grimm, something dangerous flaring in her eyes.

And then everything went _white—_

(Silver. Later she would insist it was silver.)

It took Raven checking in on him for Qrow to come back to himself, a quiet, concerned, _You okay?_ in the back of his mind telling him she’d managed to get out of her own jam.

He sent back a quick _Yeah, fine,_ despite the ringing in his ears and kind of in his brain, then cut off the connection so he could focus on the matter at hand.

He was still standing, somehow, dazed and trying to process what he’d seen or hadn’t seen in the bright flash seared into his eyes. Like how the Grimm had dissolved into a confetti party of ashes as _something_ burst out of Bedsheet’s eyes. And why he was instinctively moving to block an attack when there was nothing left to attack him—

Oh. Except Bedsheet.

One of her blades clashed against his, and as he spun to parry another attack he realized hers were jutting out of mechanisms strapped to her forearms rather than held in her hands. She swung again and he dodged, wondering whether the scowl on her face meant she was still running high on whatever crazy powers she’d unleashed or just a naturally angry person.

There was a shriek of metal against metal as he just barely parried a jab to his face, and that point he just got tired of the whole situation, punted her away from him with a kick square to the chest, and planted his sword in the ground to lean against as she landed in a heap.

“Hey,” Qrow said brightly. “Name’s Qrow. What the fuck was that?”

Bedsheet had continued glaring at him as she struggled to her feet up until he spoke, the prospect of actual conversation causing the anger to slide off her face and rebuild itself slowly into befuddled confusion. She stared at him.

“You,” she said blankly, retracting her blades.

He pointed an only half-mockingly affronted finger at himself. “Me?” He pointed at her. “You. You were the one that exploded. Why can you explode.”

Up close and no longer trying to kill him, Bedsheet was the very definition of cute—big eyed, built like a twig, probably look fifteen till she was forty, pet rabbit style cute, completely at odds with whatever the fuck he had just seen her do.

Which she didn’t seem in any rush to explain.

Bedsheet frowned, like he was the bizarre factor in this equation. Even though he had just pointed out what made her infinitely weirder. “How did you...but I checked—there was definitely no one around except—” Her eyes went wide. “You were the bird.”

Qrow’s breath caught with a spike of dismay. “What?” he said weakly, which was the shittiest bluff he’d ever made, wow, could this possibly get any worse.

Bedsheet went as white as...well, her bedsheet, mouth agape. “You were—why were you a bird?” she sputtered.

“Why was I a bird?” he repeated incredulously. “Why are you a nuke?”

Bedsheet looked like she fighting down a level of panic Qrow could reluctantly relate to, an arm wrapped around her stomach while she pressed her other hand to her mouth as though she could physically hold herself together. “Okay, so,” she said, taking her hand away from her mouth to give a lofty, dismissive wave, which would have been an easier sell if it hadn’t been paired with a faint voice, strained smile, and shaking hand. “This has been a really weird moment for both of us but I think we can agree that it’d be best if we pretended it never happened.”

Qrow snorted. “Oh really, you want to sweep it under the rug? Good luck getting the headmaster or whoever’s watching to do that.”

And fuck, now that he’d said it aloud he was starting to realize how much fun that was going to be to deal with.

Raven was going to say ‘I told you so.’ Raven was going to say ‘I told you so’ for the next four years. Or longer, because it was Raven.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, we still have some time before surveillance comes back online,” Bedsheet said with a burst of actual confidence, because apparently her laser eyes could short out surveillance networks too. Why not. She fished out a pocket watch of all things from somewhere in the depths of her cloak and glanced at it before returning it to its mysterious origins. “Yeah, we have a few more minutes.” She flashed him another pained smile. “All we need to worry about right now is you and me and the horrible damning weirdness we don’t feel like sharing with others.”

Bedsheet would make a terrible salesperson. The worst, actually. There probably was a mutually beneficial solution in there somewhere but everything about her panicked delivery made him want to refuse out of spite.

Then again, spite had gotten him into this situation to begin with.

He apparently spent too long mulling this over, because Bedsheet took another deep, shaky breath, fidgeting around with her cloak. “Look, we don’t really know each other—”

“Yeah, you haven’t even given me a name yet,” Qrow pointed out snidely.

Bedsheet blinked, looking taken aback. “Right. It’s Summer. But anyway,” she continued, finally dredging up some charisma as she flashed him an earnest smile with wide, pleading eyes, “Qrow? Right? Have you ever had one of those moments where that well-meaning but controlling someone in your life tells you not to do something, and normally yeah, it’d be a no-brainer, doing the thing would be a terrible idea but you’re also annoyed that they feel the need to state the obvious and micromanage you because hello, you’re not ten anymore, you can make your own life choices, so when an opportunity presents itself you go ‘what are they talking about, I can totally pull this off if I’m smart about it,’ and you end up doing it and surprise! It all goes horribly wrong and now you’re stuck knowing they were right but you don’t want them to know they were right because the last thing you need when you screw up is to hear them say ‘I told you so’?”

Qrow opened his mouth. Closed it again. Prayed his sister didn’t check in on him again in the next few minutes. “No,” he lied. “I have no idea what that’s like.”

Summer’s burst of charm evaporated like the Grimm she’d vaporized. “Oh,” she said, frowning. “Guess it’s just me, then.”

“Sure is,” said Qrow, working his way back to affected nonchalance. “What I’m getting from this is that you don’t want me talking about your little outburst.” He smirked. “So what’ll you give me to stay quiet?”

The very least he could do was try to get something out of this. She wasn’t exactly a criminal mastermind.

The dumbfounded look on her face cemented that. “Are you blackmailing me?”

“Yep,” he said cheerfully.

“After I saved your life?” she asked, voice pitching annoyingly shrill.

Qrow shrugged. “Who said it needed saving?” he said, even though two Grimm of that size probably would’ve been a little dicey. “And I wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place if it weren’t for you.” He raised an eyebrow. “So make me an offer.”

The befuddlement on Summer’s face swapped out for cold calculation alarmingly fast. “Right. Great. I see.” She gave it a moment of consideration. “Yeah okay, I can give you something. _My_ silence.”

Huh. She really was committed to this ‘forget about it’ angle.

“Oh, that’s cute,” Qrow said derisively, ignoring the sinking feeling in his stomach. “You really think what I can do holds a candle to your lightshow?”

But it looked like Summer had also had enough time to get her act together at this point, and what’s worse was she’d done it better than Qrow. “Hmm, yeah, mine looks a lot more impressive,” she agreed in a thoughtful drawl, “but you’ll notice that you aren’t dust in the wind like the Grimm or I wouldn’t have to deal with you, so it’s not like it’s actually harmful to people.” She shrugged. “True, I’d rather it not get out, but other than a spotlight I’d hate to have, I can’t see how it’d be detrimental to me or other people studying to, y’know, hunt Grimm. Whereas you? The shapeshifting jerk whose first instinct was to blackmail me? Good luck keeping up that lifestyle if everyone’s on to you. In the middle of a conflict involving hostility against people with animal features, no less.”

Okay, scratch that, Bedsheet was pure evil.

She smiled in a way that reminded him distressingly of his sister. “So? Fair deal? Silence for silence?”

It wasn’t a total loss, he tried to reassure himself. At least this way Raven would never find out.

...Or any of the people that might persecute them out of misguided paranoia. It was important that those guys didn’t find out either, he guessed.

He sighed. “Fair nothing, but yeah, you keep your mouth shut and I’ll keep mine.”

Summer clapped her hands together, brow smoothing in relief. “Perfect, mutually assured destruction it is.” She checked her watch again. “And since our proctor-free time’s almost up, now would be a great time to go our separate ways and pretend this never happened.”

She moved to leave and Qrow caught her arm, noting the annoyed grimace on her face as she shook him off.

“Whoa, whoa, what are you talking about?” he said, grinning as she glared at him in askance. “We’re partners now. Eye contact, remember?”

The blood drained from Summer’s face as she finally assumed the steamrolled, ‘oh fuck I’m screwed’ look Qrow had been hoping to get out of her since they’d started negotiating this shitty deal. “What.”

“Did you think I was gonna take your word on it? If we’re doing this, I’m keeping an eye on you for the next four years.”

Summer’s expression was caught so perfectly between outrage and horror that Qrow wished he had a camera. She inhaled sharply and opened her mouth, then faltered and pulled out the watch again. Her distraught frown deepened as she glanced between the watch and Qrow, presumably watching her borrowed time slip away too fast to renegotiate. She pocketed the watch, looked Qrow dead in the eye, and said very calmly, “I hate you,” before grabbing his wrist and dragging him further into the forest with her.

Qrow smirked. “Nice doing business with you too, partner.”

-

It took no time at all for Summer to let go of him once her point had been made. Afterwards, she flipped her hood back up and huddled fully into her cloak as she walked, as though it could shield her from her terrible life choices and Qrow.

It could not.

The path they walked was eerily quiet and devoid of Grimm, which probably mean the blast radius of Summer’s whatever-the-fuck had been large enough to obliterate a lot more than just the two Qrow had seen. And that just raised a whole lot more questions he’d just promised not to ask anymore.

So instead he filled the silence with the most pointless stuff he could think up.

“And what’s with all the paperwork? Who’s even gonna look at all that stuff, anyway? Why is my life any of their damn business? Do they just have whole rooms full of paper? Don’t they have anything better to do? Why bother when they can just chuck everyone applying into the forest and see who makes it out?”

Summer heaved a deep, heavy sigh but didn’t actually say anything.

Qrow chose to take that as an agreement.

“I mean I guess thinking about it, the random partnering and the scavenger hunt kind of make sense, survival’s full of looking for shit you need and settling on using whoever’s nearest to find it and I bet a lot of these people aren’t used to that. Sometimes you just gotta settle for what life throws at you.”

Summer heaved an even deeper, heavier sigh.

Which is what Raven picked up on when she decided to check back in on him.

_So_ , she sent, with all the levity of a graveyard.

_So_ , Qrow echoed back, hiding a grimace and falling silent. Which, let’s face it, Summer probably didn’t mind.

_You’re human again and you have a partner. That’s an interesting development in an awfully compressed timeframe._

_It’s handled, don’t worry about it._

But of course she did. Or at least simmered over his disobedience. _Bullshit. That bright flash—_

_I’m in one piece, right? That’s what’s important here? That’s what you care about, I’m hoping? Don’t make a big deal out of it._ He checked in on her in turn and saw, to his surprise, that the person who’d bailed her out was Social Butterfly, nattering away about something boring in his dumb hat.

He guessed it was boring, anyway. If Raven wasn’t interested enough to listen in while she was physically there, Qrow didn’t see why he should bother trying.

_Looks like you got partnered up, too. He any good in a fight or did he just try to befriend the Ursa?_

_Don’t change the subject._

_Well, I don’t have much to add to it. It’s handled. Everything went fine._ Raven made a disgruntled, ‘I don’t believe you,’ sound but didn’t actually dispute it. Which wasn’t a free pass so much as a tab for later, but he’d take it. Qrow glanced to his left, where Summer was still sulking. _This is Summer, she’s sad and awkward and she already hates me. What’s Social Butterfly’s deal?_

_He needs a less cumbersome nickname, for starters._

_Then what’s his actual one?_

_Taiyang Xiao Long._

_Holy shit._

_Yeah. So pick something more straightforward._

Granted, that meant he sounded more Mistrali than they did, but it was still a mouthful. And fuck Mistral, anyway.

_Sunshine sound good?_

Raven glanced back over at Taiyang, who was still talking animatedly and oblivious to their conversation. _Sunshine works. And that’s pretty much all you really need to know about him. God, his heart hemorrhages so much I just might drown before we meet up again._

_You have fun with that._ Summer had managed get a decent lead on him at this point, either because he was distracted or just because she really wanted to get away from him, but she was striding with a purpose. _My sullen new partner looks like she wants to get this over with, so I guess we’ll meet you there. You guys on track?_

_Looks like. See you at the temple._

Hopefully they were close. Although they’d be stuck with these people anyway after they met up.

Thinking about the long-term was awful.

“So you know where you’re going or what?” he asked Summer as he caught up to her.

It didn’t make her slow down any, but she did at least answer the question. “I made an estimate when I landed based on what I was able to see above the tree line. That Grimm chase threw me a little off course but I think I’ve still got the general idea.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Shouldn’t you have a better idea than I do?”

Qrow scowled to let her know she was edging a little too close to the bird subject. “Didn’t say I disagreed with you.”

She shrugged, eyes wide and nonchalant. “I’m just saying, I was the one getting hunted down, you looked like you were heading somewhere. So if you want to take the lead on this, tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

The smile Qrow flashed her was so humorless he wondered if he briefly transformed into his sister. “Nope, you’re good, lead the way.”

And they lapsed right back into silence.

This was a great start to a four-year relationship.

“So I said I’d try to meet up with some people at the temple,” Summer spoke up again after a few minutes, presumably as they were getting close.

Qrow snickered. “This your way of telling me not to embarrass you in front of your friends?”

Summer crossed her arms and nudged the hood aside just enough to shoot him an annoyed look. “Or, it’s my way of making conversation.”

“Oh I see, the conversation’s only worth having when you’re the one controlling it.”

“What did you want to talk about? More paperwork?”

Well great, now that was the only topic he could think of changing it to.

“So were you hoping to get paired up with one of those friends of yours?” Qrow asked instead.

Her smile was more indulgent than smug, but it still pissed him off. “Yes, I was hoping to get paired up with one of those friends of mine.”

A memory sparked. “Bookworm, right? With the long braid and the glasses?” he asked, and Summer looked surprised.

“I—yes,” she stammered. “Her. What about you, were you looking for your sister when we, uh, ran into each other?”

Qrow raised an inquisitive and mildly suspicious eyebrow and Summer responded with an offhanded shrug.

“Matching looks, matching attitudes, matching clothes, and you’ve been joined at the hip since orientation. Either you’re related or she’s your creepily coordinated girlfriend. She’s not your girlfriend, is she?”

There was a mental image Qrow could’ve done without.

“No,” he said with an involuntary shudder. “God, no. Just take the win, Bedsheet, don’t make it horrible and wrong.”

He hadn’t realized it was the first time he’d called her that aloud until he saw the unamused expression on her face.

“Bedsheet,” she repeated flatly, and a grin slipped back onto Qrow’s face.

“What, you don’t like it? A little obvious, maybe, but hey, if the sack fits—”

“You’re not calling me Bedsheet for four years.”

“Then maybe you should stop wearing one.” He snapped his fingers. “Actually, how’s Wet Blanket sound?”

“Worse.”

“Earning that nickname, Wet Blanket. Want a better name, get a better attitude.”

Summer took a breath in, let a breath out, and said, “For the time being, you can stick with Bedsheet.” Then relief crashed into her expression like a tidal wave, and she pointed dead ahead. “Hey, look! I think I see the temple.”

“Nice subject change.” But not an inaccurate one. “Huh, yeah, looks like.”

They emerged into a clearing, the pale temple ruins standing stark against the grass, and as they approached it got easier to see the pedestals circled in the center. Most of the pedestals were occupied: by two emerald leaf pendants, two ruby sun pendants, two silver snowflake pendants, and two people. Raven glanced up as they approached, one leg propped up on a neighboring pedestal. Taiyang hopped off his and waved.

“Took you long enough!” he shouted, and behind him Raven plastered on a tolerant smile and rolled her eyes.

_He’s not wrong, though._

God, Taiyang was blond. He was so blond. And muscular. And rugged. But apparently useless, because Raven wasn’t all over him.

Qrow jammed his hands in his pockets instead of waving back and glanced over at Summer.

She looked a thousand miles away.

She’d stopped walking, and he would’ve left her behind if he hadn’t looked back. Her eyes were definitely aimed in Raven and Sunshine’s direction, but their focus was elsewhere, her mouth set in a deep, distracted frown. She tugged her hood further over her face. The move didn’t look conscious.

As interesting her reaction was, it wasn’t getting them anywhere. Qrow nudged her in the side. “Remnant to Bedsheet, you in there?”

Summer actually started, flinching away from him. “Sure,” she muttered shortly, before she refocused on Taiyang, and hoo boy, who’d’ve thought she could go that red?

Taiyang was still waving, although it had devolved into elaborate hand signals like he thought they’d stopped because they’d gotten lost.

So Sunshine knew how to be a smartass. Things weren’t all bad.

“Okayyeslet’sgo,” Summer mumbled, shuffling forward at a weird diagonal that slowly but surely hid her behind Qrow.

The closer they got, the wider Taiyang’s smile looked. “Hey, Taiyang Xiao Long, nice to meet you,” he said, holding out a hand.

The need for good impressions had ended with the interview, so Qrow didn’t bother taking it. Taiyang shrugged and tipped his hat instead. “Your sister wasn’t big on handshakes either. It’s Qrow, right?”

“Yeah,” said Qrow, then said what had been lingering in the back of his mind ever since he’d first set eyes on Taiyang. “Nice hat.”

“Thanks, it’s my mom’s,” he said without a hint of irony, then leaned past Qrow to smile at Summer. “Hey, Rose! You sure sprouted.”

And Qrow lost what little hope Taiyang’s smartass moment had given him. He flashed his sister a pained look. She returned it, still seated on the pedestal.

_I watched him take down that Ursa with his bare hands and then make a pun about it. I have never been so simultaneously annoyed and turned on in my life._

“Hi,” Summer said, maybe. It mostly sounded like steam escaping a kettle.

Aww. No wonder Bedsheet hadn’t worried about Qrow embarrassing her. She could do it just fine herself.

Summer squeaked for a moment longer before doing some sort of reboot, straightening up and clearing her throat. “So we—” and she turned and looked as though she’d suddenly been reminded Qrow was there. “Uh. We can’t leave yet, we’re still waiting on someone.”

Taiyang finally stopped smiling. “Ah, actually, Sherry’s already got a team. She got paired up with that green-haired guy from Vacuo, and they ended up grabbing their relic with the councilman’s daughter and her pushy boyfriend.” He sighed. “Dunno how they all got grouped together, but once they did, you know Sherry. Ever the door—” he winced and ended clumsily, “—mat.”

Qrow and Raven’s eyes met for a split second before they both decided to drop it.

Weird slip, but probably not their problem.

Summer paled. “She went off with Goodwitch? You didn’t stop her?”

Taiyang shrugged. “I tried, but they were already on their way back. Started hustling double-time once they saw, us too. And Raven wanted to stick around to meet up with you guys.”

“If we’d gone after them, there’s a chance they would’ve kept running,” Raven spoke up with a smirk, slipping off her seat to join them. “I ran into Goodwitch and Cobalt before I ran into you, Taiyang. Met her before so I thought I should make a first impression with him, guess I succeeded.”

Qrow matched her smirk. “Put the fear of God in ‘im?”

Raven gave a full-blown smile, gleeful and humorless. “Tried, anyway. We have time, he’ll learn.” She nodded to Summer. “Raven Branwen, by the way. Knowing my brother, he didn’t bother bringing me up.”

Qrow’s smirk died. _Thanks._

_Well, did you?_

_Meh._

Summer huddled up in her cloak and nodded back. “Summer Rose.” She took a deep breath and gestured sheepishly towards the pedestals. “So uh, we’ve been lucky so far but we should probably grab some of those relics before hanging out in an open space becomes a really bad idea.”

Taiyang barked out a short, startled laugh. “Lucky? We ran into at least a dozen Grimm on the way here, and not all of them were cakewalks. Did you guys really not run into anything? Thought this place was supposed to be crawling with Grimm, that’s why they have the test here. Crazy that you managed to avoid ‘em all.”

Qrow insinuated some things with his eyebrows that made Summer zip over to the pedestals. “I’m feeling the snowflakes, who wants the snowflakes?” she said with forced cheer.

They stared at her with varying degrees of skepticism.

_What did you do to her?_ Raven asked.

Of course he got the blame.

_It wasn’t just what I was doing, there was mutual doing. Getting done. Doning._

_Hmm, based on when we reconnected, that’s fast even for you. No wonder she’s annoyed._

_First of all, no, and second of all, fuck you._

“What if we just take all of them and see if they really fail the people who get here after us for coming back empty handed?” he asked aloud, because misery loved company.

Raven looked thoughtful. Summer did not.

Taiyang surprisingly looked somewhere in the middle.

“I like where your head’s at except for the dream shattering malice part,” he said diplomatically, and strolled over to the pedestals too, somehow missing the way Summer turned bright red as he stood next to her. Seriously, it was radiating through the cloak. “Anyway, it’s obvious we gotta go with your namesake, Summer,” he added, picking up one of the sun pendants and tossing the other to her.

Somehow she actually caught it. “My what?” she squeaked, eyes comically large as they darted from Taiyang to the twins to the relics and back.

Taiyang laughed and ruffled her hood, which to Qrow’s surprise did not cause her to spontaneously self-combust. “C’mon, you can’t tell me you didn’t get the theme, you’re obsessed with that story.”

_Theme?_ Qrow asked Raven, but she shrugged.

“She missed the acorns,” his sister announced in a perfect deadpan, and Taiyang snapped his fingers and pointed at her approvingly.

“You’re right, she did miss the acorns.” He turned to Summer, who may or may not have ascended to another plane at that point. “There were acorns. I think they were made of amber? That’s what Sherry and the others took. Maybe it would’ve been a little more obvious with fall but yeah, it looks like they went with the four seas—”

Somewhere above them there came a scream.

Taiyang looked up and puffed out his cheeks. “Yeah, should’ve seen that coming.”

They all should’ve.

For bonus points, it was another goddamned Nevermore. A shame Summer couldn’t just razzle dazzle this one too.

Actually she probably could, but given their grudging blackmail arrangement Qrow had a feeling she wouldn’t.

Well, as long as Raven was there they’d figure a way out of it.

_—definitely spotted us but we have enough of a lead that we should be able to make it to the treeline before it circles back—_

_—could always shift—_

_—not shifting—_

_—it dives we go straight for the wings—_

“Hey!”

Summer and Taiyang were staring at them, Summer’s blades out again while both of them looked ready to bolt as well—in the opposite direction the twins had planned on heading.

“This is kind of a group effort, guys,” Summer said. “So maybe pay more attention?”

“Summer was saying if we headed west, we’d reach some ruins that would help us get the drop on this guy,” Taiyang added, eyes darting nervously between the twins and the circling Grimm.

Raven’s eyebrows shot up. “Why head west when we could just hit the treeline and hopefully lose it completely?”

“We head for the forest we’d be losing one Grimm and risking facing who knows how many more,” Summer pointed out. “But we try to come at the Nevermore head on, we at least know exactly what we’re dealing with and get it out of the way.” She glanced up. “Clock’s running, gonna need an answer.”

Qrow and Raven exchanged a glance.

_They have the relics._

_They do, don’t they._

“Lead the way, Bedsheet,” said Qrow.

So the good news was no one really objected to running away from the giant bird monster, even if there’d been some debate about destination. The bad news was the giant bird monster objected to getting run away from, releasing a flechette of feathers with a screech as they bolted. Taiyang managed to catch one and toss it back at the Nevermore, which was essentially useless but did admittedly look pretty cool.

“So that’s all I got, anyone wanna take a shot at this thing so we can slow it down?” Taiyang asked, nearly tripping over his own feet as he caught up to them.

There was a moment of befuddled silence as they ran and his jaw dropped.

“Wait, do we seriously have no ranged weapons between the four of us?”

Summer waved her arm blades apologetically. “I mean I can shoot mine, kinda, but right now I would probably regret it if I tried.”

Qrow and Raven held up their unsheathed swords with equally deadpan expressions.

“We are gonna get our asses kicked at the Vytal festival tournament with this lineup,” Taiyang said with a sad sigh.

They dodged another barrage of feathers.

“Or,” Qrow said flatly, “die in the next two minutes.”

Summer skidded to a stop where she’d taken the lead, a wind-swept blotch of white against the forest of black feathers. “I might have an idea of how to slow it down. Go on ahead, you should be almost there.”

Alright, her funeral.

The Branwens raced onwards but Taiyang hung back, demonstrating exactly the kind of attitude that made Qrow wonder how Huntsmen figured they’d have any kind of reasonable life expectancy whatsoever.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Qrow heard Taiyang ask.

“Something I will definitely regret,” Summer replied, in a tone so resigned Qrow wondered if he would end up seeing an encore lightshow after all. “Okay, guys, if I don’t die first, when I say so shield your eyes and make sure you’re out of the way!” she shouted.

Raven shot Qrow a mystified look, which he returned for different reasons.

That was an anticlimactic blackmail truce. For someone so neurotic and seemingly paranoid, Summer apparently had no self-restraint at all.

Why’d she even bother trying to hide it?

There was a hiss-snap-whirr and a fleshy thunk behind them and then the Nevermore went swooping past again, now trailing a sad but determined white bedsheet on a wire cable.

Qrow was so busy staring that he almost missed the fact that they’d finally come up on the ruins.

He had to hand it to Summer; this was a better playground to tackle a Nevermore than the forest would have been. The wide, open spaces gave equal advantage to them and the Nevermore, but the towering pillars and surprisingly intact structures would at least give them ways to get up and get out of the way without losing track of each other.

He glanced at Taiyang as he caught up to them. “Y’know if you knew her before this, the first thing you could’ve done during introductions was warn us that she’s fuckin’ crazy.”

Taiyang looked reflexively defensive, then glanced up at the Nevermore and sighed. “Well I mean...she’s not like that all the time.”

Summer had, at least, made it onto the Nevermore’s back at that point. Good for her.

Raven shielded her eyes and surveyed the ruins. “Whether we’re looking to help or looking to get out of the way, we’re gonna need to get some height on this thing.”

Up it was, then.

Qrow darted up the nearest pillar, hitting the ground running on the next level. Raven ended up a level above him and he made a break for her, only for the damn Nevermore to come circling back.

“Okay, now!” Summer shouted, and Qrow cursed and scrambled backwards, eyeing the on-coming Grimm as Summer flipped off its back and withdrew something small and metallic from the depths of her cloak, chucking it at the Nevermore.

So not the old razzle dazzle, then, kudos to Bedsheet for having some restraint after all. But she had warned that whatever it was would still be bright—

Qrow shielded his eyes just in time.

Whatever it was exploded into blinding light. The Nevermore screamed and Qrow braced himself at the gust of wind as it went careening past, colliding with the cliff face and tumbling down with a rumble of stone.

And then Summer barreled right the fuck back into him.

“Really?” he snapped as they lay sprawled on the ground, and she groaned.

“I thought you would be a softer landing,” she admitted. “But I forgot about your obnoxiously huge sword.”

It didn’t sound like there was a compensation joke in there, but he didn’t trust her.

“When you scavenge, you take what you can get,” he grumbled. “And I got stuck with this piece of shit.” He flopped over as they detangled and heard a loud, ominous crack.

Both of them stared at the broken sword halves in dismay.

“Like I said,” Qrow said dully. “Piece of shit.”

Summer pressed a hand over her mouth. “I am going to go ahead and apologize for that,” she said sheepishly. “So uh. Sorry.”

“Sorry ain’t gonna fix it, Bedsheet.”

Taiyang came stumbling to a halt nearby, Raven in tow at a decidedly less enthusiastic pace. “Holy crap, Summer,” he said, laughing. “Was that one of the flash grenades you lifted off Beryl last semester? I thought you turned those in!”

Summer blushed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I turned in most of them.”

Raven raised an eyebrow.

_So what, she set off one of those while you were flying by and you shifted after you crashed?_ She snickered. _No wonder you didn’t want to say anything._

Well, it wasn’t Qrow’s favorite explanation, but it was better than the real answer.

So another point to Bedsheet.

He held up the broken halves of his sword. “Look, I don’t know about the rest of you but I’d like to just get out of here now,” he said, feeling slightly vindicated by the chorus of dismayed ‘ooohs’ at the display.

“Yeah, don’t think any of us are arguing that,” said Taiyang, slinging an arm around Summer’s shoulders. “At least it’ll be an easy out from here. Quick thinking, Summer.”

Summer wandered back into luminescent blush territory. “Ha, yeah, well, I just figured that hopefully—”

There was a shriek far down beneath them and the stone began to rumble.

“—that would not make it literally blind with rage,” she finished, wide-eyed. “Uh.”

In what was probably their first true act of teamwork, they zipped over to peer over the edge as a unit as the Nevermore clawed its way back up the cliff, blind to and uncaring of the structures in its path.

“Technically,” Raven said thoughtfully, “it’s not going to get much more sitting duck than that.”

Qrow glanced at her. _Go for the wings?_

_Go for the wings._

_I think I’d need more sword for that._

_Then for once I’m glad we have company._

Taiyang hummed in agreement and cracked his knuckles. Summer slapped something into Qrow’s hand. He stared at it, nonplussed.

It looked like a collapsed version of one of her arm blades, presumably a spare unattached to the mechanism. He flicked what looked like a lever and it extended into its full short sword length.

Okay.

He was definitely going to ask her about that later but the now was a little time sensitive.

He glanced back at his sister and she smirked.

Raven pursed her lips together and whistled. “Here, birdie, birdie,” she called, and the Nevermore came skittering over the edge.

Sucker.

Raven took the left wing. Qrow took the right. The maimed bird snapped at them gamely before a wire cord wrapped around its neck, dragging it aside so that a dubiously dressed blur in a giant hat could shatter its beak. Finally, the Grimm went still.

Taiyang shook his hand gingerly and grinned. “So, that could’ve gone a lot worse. Go team!”

He tried to high-five Raven, and failed.

Qrow turned to Summer. “So why are you more rummage sale than human being?” he asked, waving the spare blade.

She retracted her blades and shrugged. “I just like to be prepared,” she said. “I can take it back if you want,” she added, holding out her hand. “Out here, still in the middle of the exam, loads of Grimm-ridden ground to cover…”

Qrow smirked. “You know, I kinda wanna see you try? Cause all I gotta do to stop you is this—” He dragged her hood all the way over her face and placed his hand on top of her head to hold her down as she flailed, holding the sword above his head in his other hand.

A muffled, enraged voice emerged from the cloak. “Are you KIDDING me—”

Sunshine wasn’t wrong, though.

That wasn’t quite as painful as anticipated.

He remembered his still-active-after-all blackmail arrangement and grimaced.

Parts of it, anyway.

 


	4. Sometimes Second Impressions Aren't That Great Either

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, it's the obligatory crossdressing chapter.

Team STRQ.

Looked like that was their name from now on.

Raven wasn’t too thrilled about having to let someone else call the shots for four years, but Qrow considered that her dose of karma for coming up with the idea in the first place. Summer was surprisingly accepting of her leadership position for someone so high-strung she‘d tangled herself up in her own cloak a few hours ago.

The first thing Taiyang did was point out that the name itself was a little stark, and somehow Qrow managed not to punch him. Then again, next to names with dubiously cobbled together pronunciations like “musket” and “gypsum,” he did kinda have a point.

MSKT consisted of the most antisocial candidates (after the Branwens, of course), going by their pre-exam sleepover—a trio of flamboyantly dressed guys (Qrow had been mentally referring to them as Peacock, Dandy, and Frills) who’d mostly stuck to themselves for the night along with a short-haired girl who’d gone from self-isolatingly snooty (Prima Donna) the night before to looking befuddled about nothing in particular as she stood with her new teammates.

So. If there were any incognito Faunus, that was probably a good team to start with.

GBSM, as predicted, was composed of Clingy Fiancé, Motormouth, Taiyang and Summer’s bookworm friend Sherry (which turned out to be short for Scheherazade, so Qrow could see why she’d gotten the nickname), and a gobsmacked Glynda Goodwitch, who looked like she’d sooner see the world end than hear the headmaster announce her as team leader. Clingy Fiancé also looked like he’d sooner see the world end than hear Glynda announced team leader.

Even her dad looked surprised. Well damn, with self-esteem and a support network like that, Glynda was just doomed if Raven kept laying on the charm.

And so, after a great deal of pomp, circumstance, standing under hot lights, listening to generic congratulations, and waiting for applause to die down, Qrow had pretty much filled his socialization quota for the next two months.

He was ready for this to be over. Didn’t they get rooms or something?

“Of course we do,” Summer said out of the depths of her hood, having resumed full-cloak escapist mode from the moment they’d stepped off the stage. So maybe Qrow wasn’t the only one who’d hit his quota that day. “But we’d be better off picking up our uniforms tonight instead of getting caught without them tomorrow if we wake up too late.”

Their what now?

“Our what now?” Qrow asked, and saw Raven frown out of the corner of his eye.

Summer and Taiyang exchanged a nonplussed look. “I mean...it’s a Huntsman academy,” Summer said. “We’re no Atlas, but uniforms come with the territory in an academy. Discipline and coordination and all that?”

“Unless you’re Shade,” Taiyang chimed in. “But the price for informal academy education is so much sand.”

Summer grimaced. “And a complete lack of political order?”

Taiyang shrugged. “Yeah, and that. Perpetual conflict and lots of sand.”

That was a little more context in a whole lot of nonsense.

“Okay,” Qrow said slowly. “So is that what they call the books we need? Is it uniform reading material that gets used in class, or…”

He trailed off at the increasingly incredulous expressions on their faces. Apparently he was heading in the wrong direction assumption-wise.

 _Why aren’t you helping me,_ he sent to Raven, and was pretty sure he was the only one who noticed the smirk she gave in reply.

_I want to see how deep you dig this hole. You’re making me look brilliant in comparison by the way, thanks, I really appreciate it._

_Go fuck yourself._

_Like a genius, seriously, keep it up._

Summer pressed a hand to her mouth, brow furrowed like he was the one tossing out vague terminology. “Did you time travel here from the past?” she asked.

Helpful, Bedsheet.

Qrow shrugged and replied in a deadpan, “Technically, didn’t we all?”

His sister finally showed something approaching solidarity by snorting out loud.

So did Taiyang. “Sorry, Summer,” he said, clearing his throat sheepishly. “But you left yourself wide open for that one.” He glanced at Qrow and Raven, still looking ominously apologetic. “I mean if this is gonna get weird, I can just grab everyone’s uniforms and meet you back at the room. Simplify things, y’know?”

Between his recent encounters with upstarts like Mustache or the headmaster and a fucking existence spent with Raven, Qrow was no stranger to condescension. He knew the tone of voice, the skeptical slant of the mouth, the turning point in the conversation where the other guy kinda just gave up—and every time, without exception, it sucked.

Nurturing condescension was a new one though, so nice job on that slight novelty, Sunshine.

But also Qrow was definitely punching him at least once before year’s end. Or maybe day’s end, even.

Qrow scowled. “I can get my own damn uniform,” he snapped. “Just stop dancing around the actual meaning and tell me what the fuck it is.”

“It’s clothes,” Summer said, voice muffled by the way she’d buried her face in her hands, which Qrow guessed meant he’d reached such high levels of mortifying that she had to cover up everything. “A uniform is the mandated, _uniform_ set of clothing provided by the academy for student wear. Because we’re a formal academic program meant to function as an organized, easily recognizable unit. So. Uniform.”

Oh.

“So why not cut down on the confusion and call it a uniform outfit?” he asked finally.

Summer emerged from her cocoon to shoot him a dead look. “Because literally everyone knows what a uniform is.”

If she was expecting him to feel at all sorry, she was gonna be disappointed.

And since Qrow was part of ‘literally everyone,’ that made two things she was wrong about. So there.

“Actually,” Raven said, speaking up now that Qrow had dug so deep he’d hit bedrock, “after that lively debate maybe we should let you pick up our uniforms just to be safe.” It looked like his sister was on the maxed out socialization quota wagon, because the bright smile she flashed them was more obviously fake than usual. “We’ll see you up at the room?”

Qrow shot her a look of betrayal. _What? No, I have be the one to get it after all that._

_We should talk before we get any deeper into this._

Qrow fought not to roll his eyes. _We’re talking right now. That’s half the point of this Semblance._

The corner of her mouth tugged down in the slightest frown. _I’d rather talk alone._

Yeah, that was fair. He could use some time away from these people, too.

Qrow sighed. “Yeah, what she said.”

Taiyang lit up like a Lancer-downed Dust transport. “Sure, sounds good!”

That seemed like too much enthusiasm.

A quick glance around told Qrow that Raven and even Summer looked equally disarmed by how happy Taiyang was to run errands, so at least he wasn’t alone.

In the mildly disturbed silence, Summer’s scroll pinged.

She glanced at it, frowning, then sighed. “I have to take this,” she said, waving the scroll in the air. “It’s my sister. So uh, sorry to bail, but if you want to get the uniforms, Taiyang, then go for it, thanks for saving us the trouble.” She turned to the Branwens. “And if you’re heading to the rooms anyway, would you mind picking up everyone’s luggage on your way up?”

Raven scoffed. “Luggage?”

Summer’s expression slid back into dismayed. “Right. So, luggage is—”

“We know what luggage is,” Qrow drawled, “we just didn’t bring any. But yeah, sure, we’ll pick up yours.”

Did that sound judgmental? He hoped it did.

Fucking luggage, seriously? How much could they need to bring if the academy provided food and living quarters?

And even their clothes, apparently.

Summer flushed, but nowhere near at the levels she did whenever Taiyang made physical contact. “Great. Oh, and the room number is—”

“I remember the room number,” Raven snapped, and now her smile had no intention of being friendly. “We got it, team leader. We’ll see you back at the room.”

She shot Qrow an exasperated look she clearly expected him to empathize with as they headed off.

He did, but he hadn’t forgotten what was really important.

_Still your idea._

_Don’t fucking start._

Raven did remember the room number, of course, which was great because Qrow had completely tuned that part out. The rooms were pretty extravagant, all things considered—lots of space, massive windows, a bed per person, ample closet space, even desks and bookshelves. Qrow wasn’t sure if he was more annoyed that the quality of Huntsman-in-training living was actually accurate or that these dumbass students got to live like kings.

The beds were way too soft though. Points taken for that.

He sat down on one anyway, chucking a bag labeled “T. Xiao Long” into the farthest corner of the room. It hit the wall with a satisfying thud.

“Is this the part where you tell me you didn’t actually think things through?” he said.

Raven set Summer’s suitcase aside and sat down on the bed opposite him.  “I did plenty of thinking on this,” she said, which was about as close to a ‘yes’ as she ever got. She shrugged. “But I want to know you’re okay with it.”

Huh. Raven must’ve been tired, that was her saddest bluff yet.

Qrow gave a bark of laughter. “Do you? Now? Yeah, great, what happened to the interview and the exam and the ceremony and the part where you said we were committed to this the moment we walked into the headmaster’s office?”

Raven smiled at him, mouth tense and strained while her eyes were pleading. “There’s always time to bail when it comes to us, Qrow. I know what I said, but after what happened with the headmaster—I’m just asking for your input. You don’t exactly seem to have hit it off with Rose, either.”

He frowned, looking over her expression. She wasn’t pulling anything. She genuinely wanted to know if he wanted to keep going.

Qrow glanced around the opulent room, over at Sunshine and Bedsheet’s luggage, and thought of his shitty blackmail bargain. He sighed. “Y’know, it’s stupid, but since we made it this far I still wanna prove we can pull it off.”

Something surprised flickered in the back of his sister’s eyes before she exhaled, flopping back on the bed. “Okay. Let’s see how far we can take this, then.” She squirmed on the mattress after a moment. “These beds are terrible.”

Qrow bounced on his and grimaced. “I know, right?”

“Like sinister marshmallows,” Raven said with such grim conviction that Qrow couldn’t help snickering.

He seized a handful of comforter and started tugging it off the bed.

“Wanna help me redecorate?”

Summer and Taiyang took long enough that Qrow was filled with the brief, futile hope that they wouldn’t have to interact anymore until the morning, but sadly they still arrived back before he could reasonably pretend to be sleeping.

“Hey, did you die?” Taiyang asked as he walked through the door.

The twins looked up from where they lay flat on the floor covered in sheets. “Do you know how much space we would have if you just got rid of our beds?” Qrow said. “Cause we would be okay with that.”

“Sell them to someone who likes sleeping on flan,” Raven added in a completely dead tone of voice.

Summer trailed in behind Taiyang and silently tossed a package to Raven before crossing the room and starting to unpack her luggage on one of the still-covered beds. Taiyang tossed a similar package to Qrow.

“Got your uniforms,” Taiyang added, like it wasn’t obvious from context. He went to retrieve his bag, still crumpled in the corner. “Thanks for getting our stuff, by the way.”

Qrow grunted noncommittally as he began unwrapping the package. Raven closed her eyes and tossed hers behind her, answering Summer’s silence with silence as she folded her hands on her stomach and settled back down.

“What the fuck,” Qrow said, sitting up as plaid fabric dropped onto his chest. “I have to wear a skirt?” He dangled it for inspection, noting the sliver of red peering at him curiously from his prone sister.

Taiyang glanced up from where he was apparently amassing an army of socks. “What? No, man, that’s a kilt, that’s always been standard. Hang on, where did I put mine…” He started digging around in his luggage, voice muffled as he dug so deep only his hat was showing. “Summer, you have yours, right?”

“Yeah,” Summer said, finally breaking her silence in the flattest tone possible. She held up her own handful of plaid and raised an eyebrow. “Academy issued, exactly alike. Alike? Uniform? Remember that whole conversation?”

Right. Because why would a Huntsman academy force people to wear something actually dignified?

Qrow made a face at the kilt and dropped it on the floor. “Fan-fucking-tastic.”

 _Look at it this way, you’ll finally get to show off those legs you’re so proud of,_ Raven sent dryly.

True. So at least that was one silver lining.

Despite this resolution, Taiyang had yet to resurface from his luggage. “Did _he_ die?” Qrow asked Summer.

She glanced at the giant cowboy hat sticking out from the luggage bag and shrugged. “Maybe,” she said, and dumped a pile of books on her bed. “Okay,” she said, raising her voice for the non-existent people in the back. “If anyone else needs bookshelf space, you better let me know now, because right now I’m mathing out just enough free space to fit everyone’s textbooks.”

A chorus of unintelligible, disinterested noises went up around the room. Summer’s eyes gleamed. “Good to know,” she said, finally approaching something close to cheerful.

Raven held up a lazy hand, either because she hadn’t been paying attention or because she felt like ruining Bedsheet’s day. “Wait, no, I need a couple spaces for extra notebooks.”

Qrow rolled his eyes. Great, his sister’s Dust obsession had made a comeback already.

“Got it,” Summer said, starting to stack her mountain of books. They didn’t look like they should’ve been able to fit in her suitcase. “Any other takers?”

“Nope,” Qrow said, and at the same time Taiyang resurrected from the dead to answer, “No thanks.”

“Oh hey, Summer,” Taiyang added as he used his miraculous recovery to festoon a needlessly large collection of clothes from his bag all over the bed, “meant to ask, how’s Briar doing?”

Oh good, more small talk. Qrow flopped back down on the floor, preparing to start tuning it out.

Summer paused in her shelving. “Oh, ah, she’s still in Kuchinashi right now,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “She just wanted to check in. Because she worries. She just worries so much. She worries so much all the time and I don’t know why, I’m fine, it’s all fine and things are going fine and—”

And after a solid run, Bedsheet’s communication skills were breaking down again.

“What about your parents?” she asked, changing topic mid-sentence. Probably before she went into a full-blown meltdown. “Are they ready for the new school year?”

Taiyang laughed despite the abrupt switch. Looking to avoid drawing attention to her crazy, if Qrow had to guess. “Dad’s good to go, but Mom’s been putting her lesson plan off for weeks and just took one last mission with him anyway.” He shook his head with a fond smile. “Pretty sure she only took a job at Signal to spend more time with him. Dad and I keep telling her she should go back to being a full time Huntress, but she keeps putting that off, too.”

So exciting.

“Hey, what about you guys?” said Taiyang, and it took Qrow a second to realize he was trying to drag them into the conversation too. “Any family? How’re they doing?”

Damn your social butterfly-ness, Sunshine, just leave them in peace.

“Oh man, that’s a good question,” Qrow said dully. “Let me find out.” He rolled to face Raven. “Hey, Raven, how’re you doing?”

She cracked an eye open and responded with an equally deadpan, “I’m great. How are you, Qrow?”

“Doin’ alright.”

Qrow propped himself up and gave Taiyang an obscenely fake grin and a thumbs up for good measure.

Taiyang frowned. “You don’t have anyone else?”

The twins exchanged a glance.

“Nobody worth mentioning,” said Qrow.

Raven’d said it best; the tribe was the closest thing they’d ever had to family, and that wouldn’t have been something they brought up with this crowd even if they hadn’t left.

Also. Still dicks.

“Same boat as Summer, then,” said Taiyang, then winced and turned apologetically to Summer. “Is it okay that I said that?”

She shrugged and nodded, still engrossed in her book shelving. Which wasn’t something Qrow ever thought he’d be jealous of, but she was the one safely avoiding the conversation now, so there he was.

Thankfully, Taiyang seemed to have lost his momentum once he realized he was surrounded by tragic orphans. “Well, maybe that’s something you guys can bond over...wait, sorry, gonna stop that train of thought, that’s none of my business.”

He went silent for a long, blessed moment, brow furrowed in thought, and then unfortunately perked up again. “Then I guess you’re all invited to my place at the end of the year! Summer, you’re free to invite Briar too if she’s back in town, we’ve got the room and my parents won’t mind.” He beamed at the Branwens. “Patch has got some great beaches, nice restaurants, and there’s a few good camping grounds, too, even if we do get our share of Grimm infestations from time to time. Oh, and we could show you Signal! That’s worth a visit, right Summer?”

Ha, nevermind, Sunshine was an all-inclusive conversation trapper.

Summer gave up on shelving and turned to face them again, expression still neutral. “I guess,” she said. Coherent Summer was back in the pilot’s seat, her voice even and disconnected. “Count me out, though, sorry. Briar and I already have travel plans.”

Taiyang deflated. “Yeah? Ah, well, maybe next year.” He looked hopefully at the twins. “You guys are still coming, right?”

_You take this one. I’d probably just deck him at this point._

“I think it might be wiser to get back to you further down in the school year,” Raven said, finally sitting up to address the question. She raised a judgmental eyebrow. “When we’ve known each other for longer than a thirty-six hour stretch of time.”

Taiyang somehow took her word for it, which meant Sunshine could definitely benefit from knowing Raven for a little bit longer. “Suit yourself.”

“I’m going to sleep,” Summer announced. “Long day. Really tired.”

‘Tired of them’ was more like it, she’d seemed even more fed up with conversation than Qrow ever since that call.

“Yeah, it’s getting late,” Taiyang said agreeably, then seemed to finally realize that he’d covered his bed in clothes. “Well, this was a mistake.”

Qrow sent a silent message of gratitude to Summer despite himself, grateful for the respite even if she was the source, and at least pretended to settle in for the night so Taiyang would finally leave him alone. “Sure was, Sunshine.”

And again, Qrow hadn’t realized he’d put off calling Taiyang that aloud until the guy’s eyebrows shot up. “So is that gonna be a thing now?” Taiyang asked.

Qrow buried himself in sheets. “Yep. Unnegotiable.”

Taiyang hummed thoughtfully. “Okay, I can live with that. Could’ve been worse.”

Qrow half-expected Summer to complain about her assigned nickname at that point, but instead she shuffled off to the bathroom without a word, returning a few minutes later in pajamas and heading straight to bed.

“Good night?” Taiyang said, ending it in a cautious question, so it looked like Qrow wasn’t the only one who thought Summer had taken a dive into murder town.

She glanced at him, again seeming to take a moment to recognize who was doing the asking, and then reactivated smitten mode. “Oh! Ah, you too, Taiyang. Good night. See you in the morning? Yeah.”

She at least seemed to realize how ungodly awkward she sounded and immediately threw the covers over her head and pretended to sleep.

Nice, first blood had been drawn on the fake sleep front. Qrow wrapped himself up in the sheets again to avoid making eye contact.

“Right,” said Taiyang, finally sounding put out. “So—” he paused, and Qrow assumed that Raven had decided to fake it the same time he did. Taiyang sighed. “Okay, then. Guess that’s it for today. Good night, everybody.”

Yeah, good riddance to you too, Sunshine.

Qrow heard Taiyang click the light off, and tried to at least take comfort in the fact that the day was over.

-

_Qrow._

Qrow started awake, taking a second to remember where he was and that no one was aiming to kill him. He squirmed out of his sheet cocoon and realized it was still nighttime.

Raven’s eyes gleamed at him in the dark.

 _What_ , he grumbled, sticking to the mental conversation to avoid waking their shiny new roommates.

Raven rose quickly and silently from her own nest of sheets and beckoned with a hand.

_C’mon._

Qrow raised a skeptical eyebrow for the benefit of no one but himself, untangling himself and standing to meet her.

_What’re you—_

_Shh._

Raven padded past the empty beds, keeping an eye on where Summer and Taiyang were sleeping, and made her way to the window. She quietly popped it open and tilted her head towards the night sky.

It should’ve been the shittiest, bottom-of-the-barrel concession, but Qrow couldn’t help but smile.

_What happened to don’t use it?_

She shrugged. _Discretion is important. But no one’s going to see us in the dark._ She sat down on the windowsill, taking another glance at their still-unconscious roommates. _Might as well get our kicks where we can, right? Just be back by sunrise._

She shifted and took off out the window in a flurry of feathers.

Well. At least that was something.

Not enough to stop Raven from being the worst, but it was hard to be mad with the breeze on Qrow’s wings as he soared past Beacon’s slumbering campus and out into the open sky.

-

Qrow overslept the next morning.

He found out he overslept through a fun combination of Raven kicking him awake with a shoed foot to the leg and Summer shouting something probably annoying in the background.

He threw a pillow at Raven. It missed, and knocked over a lamp.

“I’m up,” he grumbled, then worked on making that a reality.

Something hit him the face, and upon inspection it turned out to be his uniform. Which Raven and Summer were already wearing.

“We have five minutes to make it to the auditorium,” Summer said, cloak rippling as she paced back and forth. “So change fast.”

“If these things are supposed to be so uniform, why’re you still wearing the bedsheet?” Qrow asked, getting to work on changing. Which, even though she’d just told him to do it, Summer suddenly didn’t seem okay with as she turned tail to go hide in the hall.

“Some concessions can be made for personal expression!” she shouted through the door.

“Kinda ruins the point, doesn’t it?” Qrow shouted back, fumbling with the buttons for his new shirt.

The cloak covered everything, that had to be cheating.

“Just hurry up, they’re already calling an assembly about student behavior and we don’t want to add to the list!”

Qrow shoved on his shoes and shot his sister a questioning look. She shrugged.

_Doubt it’s us, we were careful. But she’s probably right about the tardiness._

Right.

Qrow staggered to his feet.

The skir—kilt was already fun new experience, fabric brushing his knees (at least the skirts were knee-length, and didn’t that just seem like another hey-we’re-definitely-not-hiding-Faunus-here convenience?) and swishing around as he moved. But at least it wasn’t going to restrict his movement or anything.

Eh. He’d get used to it.

And it was great for sprinting. If a little breezy.

“So I notice Sunshine abandoned us already,” he said as he and Raven let Summer take the lead. Raven probably remembered the way back anyway, but Bedsheet seemed determined to live up to the team leader label.

“He said he had something to take care of, he’s meeting us there,” Summer called back, pivoting on a heel and darting down a new hallway.

Qrow glanced at Raven for confirmation as they followed.

 _He was already gone by the time I woke up,_ Raven admitted.

She looked pretty tired herself, come to think of it. _So when was that?_ he asked.

_Before you._

_Ha ha._

They made it with a minute to spare, bursting through the door to become one with the crowd of already-gathered students.

Not that showing up late would’ve stopped Qrow from noticing that every other guy in the room was wearing a uniform with actual pants. But it might’ve given everybody else less time to stare.

He was gonna murder Taiyang.

The snickering around the auditorium had just started when Qrow finally spotted him. The bastard was grinning, ear to ear, over where he was hanging out with his and Summer’s bookworm friend Sherry.

Still in his dumb hat. And wearing pants.

Qrow could just walk right over there, and kill him. Be a great way to throw in the towel on this school business. They’d probably talk about it for years.

But that would mean giving Taiyang the satisfaction of thinking it was a well-executed prank. And Qrow just couldn’t let him have that.

“Did you know about this,” he heard Raven mutter behind him.

“Kinda,” Summer replied. “He begged me to help him sell it, but the idea was all his.” Despite her offhanded tone, she sounded like she was smiling.

And he definitely wasn’t giving Summer the satisfaction.

Qrow strode forward and plastered on a confident, flirtatious smirk to the general room.

Fuck it, he did have the legs for it.

He propped a foot on a nearby table. “Hey, ladies,” he purred, raising his voice over the swell of noise. “Like what you see?”

In his peripheral vision he saw one of the teachers up and leave the room.

That got some full-blown laughter and some scattered applause, and Qrow preened at his own ability to turn the situation around. Taiyang gave him an appreciative nod and a thumbs up.

Ha. Like that was gonna save him.

“Thank you for that moment of levity, Mr. Branwen,” said an amused voice over the hall’s speakers, and the auditorium fell silent—Qrow included, dropping his foot off the table. “But I’m afraid you’ve been gathered here this morning to discuss something a bit more serious. So please, take a moment to collect yourselves.”

Damn ninja headmaster.

He’d probably snuck on stage while Qrow had the spotlight, because let’s face it, even if the headmaster had shimmied out there to give his speech, it wouldn’t have been as interesting as the callous betrayal Qrow had just suffered at the hands of some jackass he’d met a couple days ago.

Ozpin gave the room an extra moment to switch back into business mode, which the aforementioned jackass used to make his way back over to where the rest of the team was, Sherry in tow. “You know I gotta say, up until you walked in here part of me thought you were pulling _my_ leg,” Taiyang said cheerfully.

“I’m going to kill you in your sleep,” Qrow responded with equal cheer.

“...He announced in front of the entire student body,” Raven deadpanned.

Qrow rolled his eyes. “Which is why I didn’t specify when. So be ready to give me an alibi.”

“I am recording this entire conversation and will avenge you,” Summer informed Taiyang, and as Qrow shot her an annoyed glance he saw that she had yet again retreated into the hood of her cloak like a sad turtle.

Taiyang beamed and flashed her another thumbs up.

Try it, Bedsheet.

“Beacon Academy has long prided itself in its acceptance and accommodation of students from all walks of life,” the headmaster said, having decided he’d given the room long enough to get its collective act together. “But regrettably the times have given rise to stricter rules both within and without its walls, which has lead to the detainment of one of your classmates by the Vale police early this morning.”

A murmur went up in the crowd.

Somehow Qrow felt insulted that it hadn’t been him and Raven.

“Bartholomew Oobleck was apprehended for breaking curfew and participating in a protest in downtown Vale,” Ozpin continued, raising his voice slightly over the noise. “As you may have noticed, Councilman Goodwitch isn’t present with me today as he and his daughter are down at the station recovering Mr. Oobleck. I have been asked to remind students at this time that leaving your dorms after curfew is strictly prohibited.”

He gave them another moment to settle down.

“Sherry, isn’t that your partner?” Summer asked, flipping her hood back down.

Sherry nodded and stared at the ground, fiddling with her long, dark braid. But she had to be able to communicate in some capacity, because Taiyang stepped up to fill them in.

“She said the councilman practically busted their door down this morning,” he began, before he was overridden by a bored drawl behind them.

“He’s an idiot,” sneered Clingy Fiance Malcom with a toss of his floppy blue hair. “Breaking curfew over something so stupid. And the staff’s even worse for not catching him.”

Sherry actually flinched and shuffled further behind Taiyang.

It’d been three sentences and Qrow could already tell Malcolm radiated a level of smug that went beyond even the councilman’s. That wasn’t just ‘worth a damn in society’ levels of smug, no, that was aristocracy levels of smug.

_Raven, I changed my mind about the marriage thing. You have to destroy him._

_Don’t worry, I will._

“He might not have known, isn’t he from Vacuo?” Taiyang said diplomatically. “They only have like, five laws. And four of them are ‘don’t die.’”

_Wait, why the fuck didn’t you sign us up for Vacuo?_

_Because it’s_ the desert.

“Also Professor Ozpin mentioned yesterday that surveillance was one of the things the council would be overseeing, so technically a breach would be the councilman’s oversight,” Summer added.

Malcolm scowled. “I don’t expect you to understand,” he said, storming off in a huff.

Right. What a catch. It’d be a miracle if Glynda made it through the year.

No wonder she’d taken a shine to Raven so fast.

“Councilman Goodwitch has also asked that class be suspended until all students are present. Now, I could use that time to give a detailed overview of each and every law the recent rebellion has given rise to, but I have faith in your ability to familiarize yourselves with that information in your own time. A pamphlet will be provided should you find the need for it.” Ozpin flashed the room a bright smile. “I would prefer to put that time to use with a more practical exercise relevant to your training. So please split up into your teams and head to your weapon lockers. This morning we will be working on your landing strategies.”

Oh, that absolute bastard. Qrow chose to take it personally and shot the headmaster a narrow-eyed glare that the guy didn’t react to at all.

“I regret some things now,” Taiyang announced as the auditorium began emptying out. He kept glancing nervously at Qrow’s skirt, and that was enough to make Qrow slightly less annoyed. “So how bad is this going to be, are you a boxers or briefs guy?”

Qrow beamed with screamingly fake innocence. “What d’ya mean? I heard you’re not supposed to wear anything under kilts.”

_Did you—?_

_I might’ve._

Taiyang paled. “Aaaand now I regret everything,” he said, pressing his hat to his chest. “Oh God. I envision this ending terribly.”

Summer withdrew something from her cloak and shoved it at Qrow’s chest. He stared at it.

She had gotten him pants.

“Where were you keeping those?” Qrow asked.

She stared at him, grey eyes steady. “Just put them on,” she said, and flashed him a tight smile. “Please.”

Aww, she did care.

He smirked back at her. “Whatever you say, team leader,” he said, but for some reason, yet again, she didn’t seem too happy that he actually listened to her.

“I didn’t mean right _now_ —”

-

So weaponless landing strategies.

Not too great.

Maybe he would’ve been better at it if he hadn’t been so hardwired to shapeshifting. Or if Bedsheet hadn't taken back her spare blade after the entrance exam. Sure, Qrow could've asked for it back, but that'd mean owing her. No thanks.

Qrow leaned against the wall of an out of the way corridor while everyone else tinkered around in Raven’s promised armory, and tried to ignore the bruises training had given him after his Aura had broken. The place did look pretty well-stocked and swanky, but Qrow really didn’t need any extra reminders about his lost sword after that grueling training session had already given him plenty. Sure, he hadn’t wanted to stick with that rusty oversized butterknife anyway, but it’d take some time before he’d be able to work on a replacement. Crappy or not, what he wouldn’t give to be armed with something—

A sword embedded itself in the floor next to him.

He may have made an exclamation at the sudden interruption.

It was definitely manly.

“What the _FUCK_ —”

“Language, Mr. Branwen. You are officially a student on school grounds now, after all.”

_Goddamn ninja headmaster._

Qrow chose to look at the weapon instead of the incredible asshole that had tried to give him a heart attack, and realized with surprise that it wasn’t just any old sword embedded in the floor next to him.

It was his. Still as shitty as the day he’d scavenged it, but fully intact.

“I had hoped to have a chance to return this before today’s practice, but team STRQ seemed very intent on isolating itself,” Ozpin said mildly.

Yeah, that’s what happened when three out of four of the people on the team hated socializing. Taiyang just had to deal. They outnumbered him.

Also the headmaster was probably lying and just liked seeing Qrow suffer.

“Yeah, great,” Qrow said. “I bet I have whole days before it snaps like a toothpick again.”

The headmaster hummed thoughtfully. “Fortunately we do have the resources to repair or perhaps even improve your weapon. Do you have any experience with forging?”

Qrow did not. Scavenging had served him well enough.

He grunted noncommittally. “Can’t be that hard,” he said, and the headmaster smiled.

“I’m sure your teammates would be happy to help you out in that department.”

Yeah, right. Had he met them? Bedsheet would turn up her nose and Sunshine would trick him into setting himself on fire.

Qrow snorted. “I can handle it.”

“Experience _is_ the best teacher,” Ozpin said, which tonally seemed like an agreement but the actual wording made it sound like he was looking forward to Qrow screwing it up.

There was nothing Qrow knew quite like bullshit. Not after growing up with Raven.

“That what you say to the families of the idiot students that don’t make it out of training?” he asked brightly, and the headmaster’s serene smile faltered.

An awkward silence ensued, which was still so much better than actually having a conversation.

“I can see,” the headmaster said carefully after Qrow was just getting his hopes up that he would leave him alone, “why you usually let your sister do the talking.”

Huh. Qrow had expected him to be madder. How was he supposed to take that?

He eyed Ozpin suspiciously, hoping that gauging his mood would help him think up a good comeback, but the headmaster’s expression remained—while no longer cheerful—completely impassive.

 _Where are you?_ Raven snapped, and Qrow just managed to avoid starting. Popping in like she’d been summoned; if it hadn’t been for the question, Qrow would’ve wondered if she’d been listening in. _I get not wanting to deal with the crowd if you don’t have to, but we’re finished here and you’re nowhere to be found. Did you fall into a pocket dimension?_

 _I’m busy with a thing, I’ll get back to you later,_ Qrow sent back, but the interruption had dashed any chances he had of thinking of something halfway witty.

“Wow,” he said finally. “You’re mean, Teach.”

Somehow _that_ got a smile. “By which I mean you have no patience for subterfuge,” Ozpin clarified, and chuckled. “Which is something I can understand, especially given what you’ve walked into. And refreshing, in its own way. But you might find it difficult to gain favor with others with such vitriolic bluntness.”

What was this, fucking life lessons?

Qrow shrugged. “That’s what I’ve got Raven for. She’s the one who lays on the sweet-talk to get us what we need. My job is to find out what people want from us in exchange.” He smirked up at the headmaster, sharp and guarded. “So what do you want, Teach? Giving us that interview, letting us in after I went off on you, damaging your shiny floors in a big production over returning my sword all fixed,” he yanked it out of the cracked slab of polished stone and waved it to demonstrate. “What are we gonna owe you?”

Qrow’s money was still on souls.

The headmaster nodded with a pensive frown. “Well, you’re not wrong, Mr. Branwen. There is something I want from you both.”

Qrow lowered his sword, since it didn’t seem to intimidate the guy at all anyway. “What?” he asked warily.

Ozpin beamed at him. “For you to receive a proper education, of course.” He straightened up and tapped his cane on the floor. “And I believe you’re beginning to run low on time, so you’d best get going to Professor Peach’s combat class. She doesn’t take well to tardiness. Good day, Mr. Branwen.”

And just like that, the fucker took off down the corridor.

Qrow grumbled to himself and rested his sword on his shoulder as he trudged in the general direction of the combat classroom.

 _Hey, how’re we doing on time?_ he asked Raven.

_Still got a seven-minute window, I just hate you for leaving me with these people. You done flirting?_

_God, I wish that’s what it was. I’ll tell you about it when we meet up, I’m not too far out of the way._

_You better._

Qrow took a bracing breath and glanced back down the corridor one last time, unable to shake the off-kilter feeling Ozpin just kept giving him.

The lights gleamed off the suddenly flawless floor of an otherwise empty corridor.

Qrow's eye twitched.

Yeah.

This place was weird.


End file.
